Climate change adaptation, mitigation and livelihood benefits in coffee production: where are the synergies?

Abstract

There are worldwide approximately 4.3 million coffee (Coffea arabica) producing smallholders generating a large share of tropical developing countries' gross domestic product, notably in Central America. Their livelihoods and coffee production are facing

Coupling of pollination services and coffee suitability under climate change

“…Those practices include weed management (maintaining beneficial native species at levels that do not compete with crops to provide forage and other resources for bees), reduced biocide use, and increased plant diversity across field margins, edges, pathways, and live fences (20). Coffee management strategies include foliage-shade adjustment to reduce temperature stress, increased water efficiency, irrigation, use of drought-and heat-stress-adapted varieties (21,22), and soil conservation to improve moisture content. Such strategies would improve pollination and maximize benefits for farmers in areas of positive coupling, minimize impacts for those in areas of negative coupling, and compensate for the reduction in coffee suitability by improving pollination services in areas of decoupling.…”

Crop modelling: towards locally relevant and climate-informed adaptation

“…Rather, qualitative evidence for the benefit of a practice was the cumulative result of questionnaires and focus groups with farmers based on their own perceived experiences of climate impacts on their crops, livelihoods and adaptation (Campos et al 2013;Baca et al 2014;Bacon et al 2014;Eakin et al 2014;Milan and Ruano 2014;Rahn et al 2014). Porch et al (2007) did calculate changes in production to assess the relative effect of climate variability as a driver of migration.…”

“…They use their analysis to stress that vulnerability will be exacerbated by climate change, but without use of future climate scenarios or projections. Only four studies used climate projections to construct a quantitative scenario of future climate impact as a baseline for adaptation: Baca et al (2014) and Rahn et al (2014) both used downscaled GCM projections from SRES A2a, to drive a climate suitability model (MAXENT) to produce an indicator of exposure to climate change. This indicator of climate change exposure was then used as a point of discussion with stakeholders with the aim to identify locally relevant adaptation strategies based on this information.…”

“…This has enabled them to produce information that is informed by largescale modelled future climate scenarios (A2, business as usual) with quantified uncertainty (generated by use of GCM ensembles, input in to DSSAT), but that is also locally relevant to the specific area using local case studies. Studies by Baca et al (2014) and Rahn et al (2014) and Ruane et al (2013) all discussed adaptation options post-impact assessment; there were no examples of studies that used an iterative process between researchers (impacts modeller, social scientist) and farmers to model the impact of local relevant adaptation strategies on households.…”

“…Explicit descriptions of an adaptation, where discussed, would aid translation between place-based and modelling research. For example, Rahn et al (2014) describe their use of the term 'soil conservation' was specifically in reference to planting within contour lines and using organic fertiliser and pesticide inputs. This could be more easily translated into a model impact assessment through adjusting soil-water retention, pest-and-disease or nutrition Other reviewed studies used the same term 'soil conservation' more ambiguously, without a description of which specific practices were being referred to, which removes the possibility of assessing the potential benefits of the adaptation under future climate projections.…”