LOS BANOS, Laguna, Philippines - The Department of Agriculture is working double time on its Adaptation and Mitigation Initiative in Agriculture (AMIA) to respond to the expected deleterious impact of El Nino on both farm and fisheries yields.
AMIA is the DA’s response to the threats of climate change, particularly the impact of El Nino that experts believe will cause widespread damage on the country anew, particularly the farm and fisheries sectors.
DA officials recently tackled the various means to counter the threats from extreme weather, high temperature, recurrent storms and prolonged dry spells on palay harvests. Tackled as well, at the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (Searca) here, were the aquaculture output and the catch in 13 of the country‘s traditional fishing grounds.
AMIA was crafted in compliance with the Climate Change Act of 2009, which prepares the country for the adverse impact of severe climate events until year 2050. By that year, the food crop yield, especially in tropical countries, is expected to fall by 50 percent.
The DA program is also attuned to the Umbrella Program on Food and Nutrition Security for Southeast Asia- 2014-2019 that Searca developed in conjunction with the University Consortium that includes leading universities in member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean.)
According to Dr. Gil C. Saguiguit Jr., the Umbrella Program on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in Southeast Asia (CCHAM) is seen as a platform for collaborative research among the members and partner universities of the Searca-initiated Southeast Asian University Consortium for Graduate Education in Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC), as well as the institutions from other member countries of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (Seameo.)
APEC flagged
The recent ministerial meeting of the member-states of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) also took up this program at a forum in Iloilo City.
Three themes underlie the program: Food reserves, trade and investment; sustainable food production and utilization systems, and; emerging issues related to food security.
AMIA, meanwhile has four strategic objectives:
• Increase the adaptive capacity and productivity potentials of agriculture and livelihood by modifying commodity combinations to better meet weather issues and natural resource endowments;
• Redefine Strategic Agricultural and Fisheries Development Zones (SAFDZ) by including climate change vulnerabilities as part of mapping variables;
• Redefine the agricultural development planning framework by including key factoirs associated with climate change, and;
• Revelop a new framework and plan for the provision of new government agricultural services toward accelerated development of climate-smart agriculture and fisheries.
Thus far, the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) has developed several rice varieties that can either survive being submerged for days or weather hot spells.
Cutting methane from paddies
Yet another option to prepare for climate change is the possible propagation of Susiba 2 rice. This is a genetically-modified variety that US and Chinese researchers reinforced with a barley gene responsible for producing more starch with less root growth.
Susiba 2, developed and tested under laboratory and field conditions in China for three years, promises to cut down to one percent the total methane emissions in rice paddies; this, even as it has 300 more grains per plant than ordinary strains.
A plant biologist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Chuanxin Sun, said the new technology shows one can raise output and cut methane emissions in rice paddies at the same time.
Methane traps heat in the atmosphere in such an adverse way: in just 20 years, an assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said it has become 84 times stronger than carbon dioxide as a GHG.
Experts note that agriculture is responsible for 17 percent of global methane emissions.
Golden Rice
Searca has also been promoting the commercialization of Golden Rice, which contains more beta-carotene, a precursor to the human production of Vitamin A.
On the other hand, boosting aquaculture output without harming the environment can be achieved by using feed ingredients with low carbon footprints: read sweet potato, which has been developed as a subsitute for fish meal by researchers in Tarlac.
Dr. Joebert Toledo , the former director of the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center-Aquaculture Department (Seafdec-Aqd), meanwhile, is also working on high-nutrition aquafeed in Bulacan.
And aquaculture expert Gil Marzo has been promoting a low-cost fishmeal in collaboration with fishpond owners.
A US biotechnology company, Calysta, is also developing what it described as a sustainable, healthy, environmentally sound and cost-competitive alternative to fishmeal called Microbial ProteinTM.
In an article in Fish Site, an online trade journal, the company said that “Microbial Protein is the product of a natural fermentation using a naturally occurring organism. It belongs to an established class of food/feed ingredients generically referred to as single cell protein. The methane-eating microbe produces protein that has a nutritional value almost identical to fish meal.”
Calysta president Dr. Alan Shaw said “the product is a non-GMO, non animal, non-vegetable source of protein that is of a high quality and does not compete in any way with the human food chain.”
