Food security in high mountains of Central Asia: A broader perspective

Abstract

Addressing food security in high mountains is a multidimensional conundrum because of complex climate patterns and environmental attributes. These conditions affect water supplies, biodiversity, droughts, and other hazards. The climate change–land degradation nexus, although it is difficult to disentangle, poses formidable challenges. Isolated mountain villages, coupled with poverty, a strained subsistence existence, conflict, and marginal lands make the residents vulnerable to malnutrition, stunting, and food access. Because the arable land is mostly in confined valleys, food production is insufficient. The soils are typically infertile, with little organic matter; on hillslopes, thin soil and rock cover, coupled with short growing seasons, restrict crop production. High-elevation pastures are overgrazed, and the natural hazard impacts on food security are often overlooked. We examine food security through these multifaceted stressors, instead of merely focusing on production and distribution, and present an integrated approach to assess natural and anthropogenic stressors and feedback loops affecting food security linked to planning, mitigation, and coping strategies.

A Proposed Typology of Farming Systems for Assessing Sustainable Livelihood Development Pathways in the Tien Shan Mountains of Kyrgyzstan

“…These challenges are also present in other mountainous regions of Central Asia [6,[69][70][71], northwestern China [72], the northern Pakistani Hindu Kush Himalayas and Nepal [73][74][75], African highlands [76][77][78], and South American highlands [79,80]. In these studies, typical criteria for classifying small agropastoral systems in mountainous areas, in addition to farm size (including pasture and herd size), include elevation and agro-ecological conditions.…”

Sediment Sources, Erosion Processes, and Interactions with Climate Dynamics in the Vakhsh River Basin, Tajikistan

“…Shifting from commonly used flood irrigation [71] to more water-efficient systems will reduce gully erosion [48]. Using limited-till cultivation and cultivating along slope contours with vegetated buffers will reduce sediment connectivity to waterways [31]. Planting locally adapted vegetation can also reduce soil erosion as well as irrigation requirements [72].…”

“…In addition to energy generation, some of which Tajikistan exports, water flowing through tributaries and the main stem of the Vakhsh River supports agricultural irrigation both in the mountains and downriver, including farms in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan where expansive cotton fields exist, dating back to Soviet times [30]. The reliance of mountain communities on timely high quality water availability is a critical link for food security and domestic supplies [31]. These combined uses underscore the importance of understanding the complexity of sediment sources and linkages in this fluvial system.…”

“…Despite the vast number of glaciers in the Vakhsh basin, snow accumulation and melt contribute more to river discharge than glacial melt [38]. Snow cover and water content throughout much of mountainous Tajikistan is reported to be highly variable from year to year, with few insights into predictable patterns [31,39]. Contributions of permafrost thaw to discharge are virtually unknown, but these occur at a critical time for agriculture, in the mid-to-late dry summer periods.…”

Why Have China’s Poverty Eradication Policy Resulted in the Decline of Arable Land in Poverty-Stricken Areas?

“…Among them, arable land, as the essence of land resources, is the basic element of agricultural production and the main source of food provision [3,4]. Therefore, the protection and utilization of arable land resources is of special significance to ensure food security, ecological safety, and sustainable use of resources [5][6][7]. Previous studies reveal that about a quarter of the national poverty-stricken counties in China are subject to unfavorable constraints on land resources, mainly in terms of poor topographical conditions, poor arable land resources, scarcity and scattering, and serious degradation, which is not conducive to large-scale centralized operation and seriously affect the efficiency of agricultural production, thus affecting the livelihoods and incomes of the poor [8][9][10].…”