The study was carried out by CSIRO through its Climate Adaptation Flagship, in collaboration with a range of partner organisations in the four target countries. It led to recommendations to ACIAR in relation to future investment into farm-level adaptation research, extracted from the review of:
existing knowledge with respect to projected climate change and its likely impacts
key priorities and policies relevant to adaptation to climate change
current donor funded activities
extension and agro-meteorological services in each country
the current knowledge base with respect to farm level adaptation.
These recommendations were clustered into seven domains that are generally applicable to all four countries, followed by a set of country-specific considerations. Those domains are:
climate science research priorities
improving the assessment of climate change impacts on rice-based farming systems
research to underpin government and donor supported adaptation programs
understanding adaptive capacity as the base for developing technical adaptation options
enhancing the role of farming systems research in selecting and evaluating farm level adaptation options
research into improved water management as a key to buffering climate impacts
strengthening the capacity of information delivery systems
Whilst most of the recommendations are relevant to all four countries studied, the balance and emphasis across the recommendations vary between each of the countries - depending on ACIAR country priorities, opportunities to link with other donor projects and the level of research capacity in country.
In Cambodia and Lao PDR it is proposed that ACIAR's adaptation research portfolio should focus on assessing adaptive capacity to inform local-level choice and testing of crop, nutrient and water (irrigation) based adaptation techniques. This assessment should form the basis for more general adaptation strategies to underpin national and provincial planning and policy-making.
Bangladesh offers the best prospects for the further refining, testing and validating of an extended APSIM-ORYZA model (a new functionality developed in the APSIM framework to simulate rice production) because it is possible to draw on several high quality datasets not available elsewhere - this is deemed the highest priority for ACIAR's climate adaptation portfolio. There are other possibilities for addressing salinity intrusion and flooding in south-western Bangladesh and mitigating the impact of drought in north-western Bangladesh.
In India, based on stakeholder feedback, a clear preference is given to further refining the use of seasonal climate forecasting in farmer decision-making and using this as an entry point to adaptation.