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Realizing the adaptive capacity of farming communities in coastal Sri Lanka
01.07.2009
This paper applies a framework for understanding adaptation to an intervention in coastal Sri Lanka. Adaptation is described in terms of different components that, in combination, can address current vulnerability and the uncertainty inherent in climate predictions. In Sri Lanka, temperature increase, sea-level rise and the failure of irrigation systems are all contributing to the increasing salinity of small-scale farmers' rice paddies. The community-based adaptation activities reviewed here aimed to reintroduce traditional rice varieties to restore yields following the failure of fertilizer-dependent hybrid varieties and neglect by formal research institutions. Crucially, farmers themselves led variety-selection research, rebuilding their ability to experiment, thereby addressing the immediate problem of crop failure and providing the capacity to adapt to future environmental change. -
Changing a dysfunctional food system: Towards ecological food provision in the framework of food sovereignty
01.05.2011
The dysfunctional food system that results in a billion hungry people and more than a billion obese people needs fundamental change. This includes a different governance structure and a model of production and consumption that at its centre has the provision of healthy food, produced sustainably and as locally as possible. The paper describes options, including governance by the reformed Committee on World Food Security, that include the implementation of the findings of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development and the call for ecological food provision in the framework of food sovereignty, as called for by social movements including Vía Campesina.