Southeast Asian farmers find climate change a major challenge
Source: Middle East Insurance Review | Oct 2021
A significant number of farmers (68%) in Southeast Asia’s largest agricultural-producing countries are concerned with the impact of climate change according to new research released in August 2021.
The research ‘The 2021 ASEAN Farmer Sustainability & Resilience Study’ by agricultural and animal health market research company Kynetec was conducted in the first quarter of 2021 for CropLife Asia and involved 525 corn, rice, fruit and vegetable farmers across Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
CropLife Asia is a non-profit society and the regional organisation of CropLife International. CropLife Asia executive director Dr Siang Hee Tan said, “Farmers across Southeast Asia are facing increasing challenges that threaten their livelihood, food supply chain resiliency and the sustainable supply of safe and nutritious food on which we all depend.”
He said, “As the prevalence of climate change induced droughts, floods and erratic weather patterns continue to grow, Southeast Asia’s smallholder farmers are under tremendous pressure to cope.”
While over 68% of farmers surveyed said the effects of climate change (flood, drought) were a
challenge of unique concern, the number of farmers from the Philippines and Vietnam raising their concern with climate change was particularly high. In these two countries, the number was 77% and 70% respectively.
More findings from the 2021 ASEAN Farmer Sustainability and Resilience Study are scheduled to be released throughout the remainder of 2021. M