Climate change is altering the productivity of natural resources with far-reaching implications for those who depend on them. Resource-dependent industries and communities need the capacity to adapt to a range of climate risks if they are to remain viable. In some instances, the scale and nature of the likely impacts means that transformations of function or structure will be required. Transformations represent a switch to a distinct new system where a different suite of factors become important in the design and implementation of response strategies. There is a critical gap in knowledge on understanding transformational capacity and its influences. On the basis of current knowledge on adaptive capacity we propose four foundations for measuring transformational capacity: (1) how risks and uncertainty are managed, (2) the extent of skills in planning, learning and reorganizing, (3) the level of financial and psychological flexibility to undertake change and (4) the willingness to undertake change. We test the influence of place attachment and occupational identity on transformational capacity using the Australian peanut industry, which is presently assessing significant structural change in response to predicted climatic changes. Survey data from 88% of peanut farmers in Queensland show a strong negative correlation between transformational capacity and both place attachment and occupational attachment, suggesting that whilst these factors may be important positive influences on the capacity to adapt to incremental change, they act as barriers to transformational change.
Incremental adaptation may be inadequate to deal with rapid shifts and tipping points for food production under climate change. The concepts of transformative and transformational adaptation have emerged in recent years to address the need for major, non-marginal transitions in sectors, such as agriculture in response to climate change. However, there is less empirical evidence of transformation in practice. Here we use a simple semi-quantitative definition to identify recorded cases of transformational adaptation in response to climate change. A structured search of academic literature found 23 empirical case studies that meet our criteria for transformation of agriculture under climate change: a response to climate risks along with a redistribution of at least a third in the primary factors of production (land, labor, capital) or the outputs and outcomes of production over a time period of 25 years or less. The case studies offer experience-based lessons on managing transformative processes in agriculture at all four stages of the adaptation cycle: understanding goals and objectives, developing a vision and pathway, implementing adaptation actions, and monitoring, evaluating and learning. In general, the case-study processes of transformation have diverged from well-managed, inclusive approaches based on foresight and continual learning. Our review provides little early evidence that transformative adaptation processes in response to climate change have generated more resilient agricultural systems or improvements in governance. Governments and development partners could improve the effectiveness of outcomes through providing more comprehensive and long-term approaches to adaptation planning alongside financial and technical assistance, within a framework that rewards farms as multi-functional systems.
Since 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has produced five Assessment Reports (ARs), in which agriculture as the production of food for humans via crops and livestock have featured in one form or another. A constructed database of the ca. 2,100 cited experiments and simulations in the five ARs was analyzed with respect to impacts on yields via crop type, region, and whether adaptation was included. Quantitative data on impacts and adaptation in livestock farming have been extremely scarce in the ARs. The main conclusions from impact and adaptation are that crop yields will decline, but that responses have large statistical variation. Mitigation assessments in the ARs have used both bottom‐up and top‐down methods but need better to link emissions and their mitigation with food production and security. Relevant policy options have become broader in later ARs and included more of the social and nonproduction aspects of food security. Our overall conclusion is that agriculture and food security, which are two of the most central, critical, and imminent issues in climate change, have been dealt with an unfocussed and inconsistent manner between the IPCC five ARs. This is partly a result of not only agriculture spanning two IPCC working groups but also the very strong focus on projections from computer crop simulation modeling. For the future, we suggest a need to examine interactions between themes such as crop resource use efficiencies and to include all production and nonproduction aspects of food security in future roles for integrated assessment models.
Food Security and Food Production SystemsChapter 7On average, agronomic adaptation improves yields by the equivalent of ~15-18% of current yields {Figure 7-8, Table 7-2}, but the effectiveness of adaptation is highly variable (medium confidence) ranging from potential dis-benefits to negligible to very substantial (medium confidence). {7.5.1.1.1} Projected benefits of adaptation are greater for crops in temperate, rather than tropical, regions (medium confidence) {7.5.1.1.1, Figures 7-4, 7-7}, with wheat-and rice-based systems more adaptable than those of maize (low confidence).{Figure 7-4} Some adaptation options are more effective than others (medium confidence). {Table 7-2}Global temperature increases of ~4°C or more above late-20th-century levels, combined with increasing food demand, would pose large risks to food security globally and regionally (high confidence). Risks to food security are generally greater in lowlatitude areas. {Box 7-1, Table 7-3, Figures 7-4, 7-5, 7-7} Changes in temperature and precipitation, without considering effects of CO 2 , will contribute to increased global food prices by 2050, with estimated increases ranging from 3 to 84% (medium confidence). Projections that include the effects of CO 2 changes, but ignore O 3 and pest and disease impacts, indicate that global price increases are about as likely as not, with a range of projected impacts from -30% to +45% by 2050. {7.4.4}Adaptation in fisheries, aquaculture, and livestock production will potentially be strengthened by adoption of multi-level adaptive strategies to minimize negative impacts. Key adaptations for fisheries and aquaculture include policy and management to maintain ecosystems in a state that is resilient to change, enabling occupational flexibility, and development of early warning systems for extreme events (medium confidence). {7.5.1.1.2} Adaptations for livestock systems center on adjusting management to the available resources, using breeds better adapted to the prevailing climate and removing barriers to adaptation such as improving credit access (medium confidence). {7.5.1.1.3}A range of potential adaptation options exist across all food system activities, not just in food production, but benefits from potential innovations in food processing, packaging, transport, storage, and trade are insufficiently researched. {7.
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