Understanding role of climatic parameters and adaptation strategies in agriculture productivity of South Asian countries

Figures & data

Table 1. Percentage of labor force and GDP contribution in agriculture over a period of 2000 to 2018

Year	Country	Afghanistan	Bangladesh	Bhutan	India	Maldives	Nepal	Pakistan	Sri Lanka
2000	Labor	69.6	50.8	46.5	59.9	13.7	–	48.4	36.0
	GDP	43.7	25.5	27.4	23.0	6.9	39.6	27.4	17.6
2005	Labor	69.6	48.1	43.6	56.1	15.9	–	43.0	32.8
	GDP	35.2	20.1	23.2	18.8	8.7	35.2	24.4	11.8
2010	Labor	–	47.5	59.4	53.2	4.3	64.0	45.0	32.5
	GDP	28.8	17.8	17.5	18.2	6.1	35.4	24.3	9.5
2018	Labor	39.5	40.6	54.0	–	9.0	21.5	38.5	25.5
	GDP	21.4	13.8	18.3	16.1	6.6	28.1	24.0	8.6

Source: Asian Development Bank, 2019.

Table 2. Effect of temperature and precipitation on major crops of South Asian countries

Country	Temperature and precipitation	Crops	Impact	Feedback	References
Afghanistan	High temperature up to 5ºC in overall region; precipitation reduces 100mm and more by 2050; Increase in temperature between 2–6ºC; drier conditions with 10-40mm reduced rainfall pattern (Savage et al., 2009; Sharma et al., 2015)	Rice, Maize	85% loss of production of rice and maize since 1998–2005	Negative	Savage et al. (2009)
		Wheat	Loss of 7.7% of yield	Negative	Sharma et al. (2015)
Bangladesh	0.20ºC increase in temperature per decade; reduction in −0.75 and −0.55mm in pre and post monsoon seasons, respectively, with decline in precipitation pattern from 2011–2020 up to 153mm (Rahman & Lateh, 2017)	Wheat	Production loss of 60% of achievable yield; by 2050 yield is reduced of 32%	Negative	Hossain and Teixeira da Silva (2013).
		Jute	Gain in production that is 0.87% but loss in yield for up to 0.22%, in 2014–2015 compared to last year 2013–2014	Positive production but negative yield	Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (2015)
		Rice	Production loss of average 7.4% since 2005–2050; 8–17% Production losses by 2050; 40% Aman rice production losses by 2005–2006; Yield loss of 12.67%	Negative	Sikder and Xiaoying (2014); Amin et al. (2015); Nahar (2016)
Bhutan	Dry spells and winter temperature rises at higher 3.5 to 4.0ºC (UNDP, 2011) Precipitation nearly zero in winters and increase gradually up to 280mm to 500mm in July (Shahnawaz & Strobel, 2015)	Potato	Yield loss of 5606.7 to 3763.0 kg/acre from 2004 to 2013	Negative	WBG, World Bank Group (2016)
		Wheat	Yield increased by 552.7 to 787.7 kg/acre from 2004-to 2013, respectively	Positive	WBG, World Bank Group (2016)
		Rice	Yield increased by 1166.1 to 1555.6 kg/acre from 2004-to 2013, respectively; Yield increases up to 10% that is positive trend for year 2020s and 2050s	Positive	WBG, World Bank Group (2016); Knox et al. (2011)
		Maize	Yield loss of 1679.1 to 1297.9 kg/acre from 2004-to 2013, respectively	Negative	WBG, World Bank Group (2016)
India	Temperature increase by 0.48C and precipitation decrease by 26mm from 1960–2016 (Hari et al., 2018)	Maize	Yield loss by 10–30%	Negative	Aryal et al. (2019)
		Cotton	yield loss by 20–50%	Negative	Araya (2007)
		Rice	Yield loss by 6–8%	Negative	Aryal et al. (2019)
		Wheat	Yield loss of 1.5–5.8%; yield reduced to 5.2% from 1981–2009	Negative	DEFRA (2012); Aryal et al. (2019)
Nepal	Temperature increase by 0.02ºC/year with decrease in precipitation by 10.21mm annually for past 30 years (Dhakal et al., 2016)	Chick pea	Severe winter cause yield loss of 38%	Negative	Dhakal et al. (2016)
		Mustard seed	Severe winter cause yield loss of 11.2%	Negative	Bhusal (2019)
		Potato	Severe winter cause yield loss of 27.8%	Negative	Bhusal (2019)
		Barley	By winter drought assessment yield loss by 17.3%	Negative	Dhakal et al. (2016)
		Wheat	Yield increase by 8.6%; by winter drought assessment yield loss by 14.5%	Positive; Negative	Acharya and Bhatta (2013); Dhakal et al. (2016)
		Rice	Yield increase by 17.1%	Positive	Acharya and Bhatta (2013)
Pakistan	Rise in temperature up to 1.05°C and rainfall decline by 3.5mm (Baig & Amjad, 2014)	Other crops	yield loss by 17–3%	Negative	Ahmed et al. (2019)
		Sugarcane	production increase by 58% from 1973 to 2013	Positive	Zhao and Li (2015)
		Oilseeds	yield loss by 15–4%	Negative	Ahmed et al. (2019)
		Cotton	yield decreaseby 8%	Negative	Ahmed et al. (2019)
		Maize	yield decrease by 5%; loss by 27%	Negative	Ali et al. (2017); Ahmed et al. (2019)
		Wheat	yield decrease for up to 1.9% during period 2013–2015; yield loss by 50%	Negative	Ali et al. (2017); I. Ahmed et al. (2019)
Sri Lanka	Temperature increase by 2.4°C with rainfall increase by 106mm in 2070–2099 compared to 1961–1990 (Esham & Garforth, 2013)	Tea	Yield reduces by 10%	Negative	Esham and Garforth (2013)
		Rice	Production loss of 14–28% due to drought	Negative	Wijeratne et al. (2007)

Table 3. Adaptation practices in major crops of South Asian countries

Country	Adaptation	Crop	References
Bangladesh	Use of System of Rice Intensification (SRI) to enhance rice yield improve 64% of yield relative to conventional methods	Rice	Barrett et al. (2016)
India	Ring pit planting compared to conventional flat planting, yield increase by 64%	Sugarcane	Yadav and kumar (2005)
	Argro-foresty, using prosopis cineraria as wind barrier; integrated weed management	chickpea	Raj and Lal (2014); Ratnam et al. (2011)
Nepal	Nutrition management, raised bed cultivation	Maize, Wheat	Sherchan and Karki (2005); Lauren et al. (2006)
Pakistan	Use of drought and heat tolerant cultivars	Cotton wheat	Khan et al. (2015) Minhas et al. (2018)
Sri Lanka	SRI to improve yield	Rice	Namara et al. (2003)

Table 4. Estimation of financial needs for agriculture

Estimated cost needs	Afghanistan (USD)	Bangladesh (USD)	Bhutan (USD)	India (USD)	Nepal (USD)	Pakistan	Sri Lanka (USD)
Agricultural Adaptation cost/ha/year	138 billion	116 billion	29 billion	69 billion	67 billion	72 billion	111 billion
Adaptation to disaster	16.3 billion	42 billion	51.12 billion	332 billion	10.1 billion	97 billion	9.99 billion

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Data availability statement

All data related to this manuscript is included in the main text.