The need to develop Community Supporting Agriculture technology packages that suit each country and each agro-ecological region on a case by case basis  

Focal Area: Making an assessment of technologies that will reduce the impact of climate change and the rate of release of greenhouse gas emissions in Sri Lanka.

Geographic coverage: National

Duration: June 2011 to April 2013

Implementing agency: Climate Change Secretariat of the Ministry of Environment and Renewable Energy

Donor/source of funding: Global Environment Facility, United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP-Risoe Center (URC) and the Asian Institute for Technology (AIT)

Budget: Not available

Brief summary of activities and relevance to SLM FAO project: 

“The focus of this assessment has been on technologies that support Sri Lanka’s economic development in a sustainable manner, in line with the National Development Policy Framework of Sri Lanka (Vision for a New Sri Lanka, 2010), and vulnerability of relevant sectors to climate change” (Climate Change Secretatiat, 2014). The guidelines mentioned in the UNDP/UNFCC Handbook for Conducting Technology Needs Assessments for Climate Change (2010) has been used extensively during this assessment.

The main objectives expected from the TNA are:

1. Meeting Sri Lanka’s national development priorities
2. Reduction of Green House Gas emissions and enabling protective measures against climate change damage in a manner that the sustainability outcomes of the process are maximized

 

The Specific objective of the Technical Needs Assessment are:

1. To define priority sectors for which technologies are needed to sustain national development projects and programmes in light of the UNFCCC and potential impacts of climate change.
2. To Identify suitable technologies that contribute to climate change adaptation in the relevant sectors.
3. Prioritize the identified technologies based on r cost-effectiveness and barriers to implementation.
4. To develop an enabling framework for deployment and diffusion of prioritized technologies for relevant sectors.
5. To develop project proposals for priority technologies for relevant sectors to enable mobilizing resources for implementation of the programme

The Technical Needs Assessment was done in four steps:

1. Technology identification and prioritization
2. Barrier analysis for identification of potential barriers and development of enabling framework
3. Development of Technology Action Plans
4. Development of Project ideas

Five priority sectors were identified based on their contribution to the national development along with minimizing the country’s vulnerability to climate change, market potential and accessibility to technology and potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These sectors were 

1. Food: Among the specific aspects of the food sector that is sensitive to climate change, factors that affect production potential/productivity such as the nature of soil, water and nutrient availability, weather, energy, genetic characteristics of livestock including fish were specifically identified. And temperature and precipitation h were identified as key drivers of agricultural production. The assessment identified an important gap in the policy landscape to address potential impacts from climate change which needs to be rectified after further study.
   The report points to the fact that efforts to strengthen food security are targeted at increasing domestic production of crops, poultry and dairy products and fish, while controlling imports and increasing exports. Among the benefits the farmers received at the time of publishing Climate Change Secretatiat, (2014) were the fertilizer subsidy (at 50% below and providing irrigation water free of charge. The technologies pertaining to this sector were decided based on cost, potential risk and the expert opinions about relevance of that technology. Using this methodology, nine adaptation options were identified and arranged in the order from the most cost effective to the least cost effective:  
   i. sustainable culture-based fisheries ii. Crop Diversification and precision farming iii. Sustainable Land Management  
   iv.    Solar powered drip irrigation
   v.    Development of appropriate varieties
   vi.    Ecological pest and disease control  
   vii.    Responsive agricultural extension
   viii.    Development of appropriate breeds
   ix.    Rain water harvesting   
   When considering the modalities used to transfer technologies within each sector, it is important to consider the whether the market or political decisions would be responsible for the process of its diffusion across the sectors, consumer and capital goods are reliant on the former while publicly provided non-market goods are reliant on the latter. Climate Change Secretatiat, (2014) elaborated on the top three prioritized technologies in the food sector and of them there appears to be parallels between:  
   Crop Diversification and precision farming: the main economic and financial barriers were related to yield price fluctuations and cost of production. The nonfinancial barriers could be categorized into the following;
   i.    Policy, legal and regulatory which refers to fragmentation of land holdings and land tenure.
   ii.    Institutional and Organizational Capacity: Lacking varieties and management packages to facilitate diversification, lack of availability of processing infrastructure and post-harvest technologies.
   iii.    Market Failure: high risk of marketing due to seasonal production, poor market penetration in rural areas and the lack of market information.
   iv.    Information and awareness: lack of knowledge on cultivation of new crops and precision farming.
   v.    Other non-financial barriers such as the inadequacy of the existing irrigation network design.
   Sustainable Land Management: the main barriers for the transfer of technologies pertaining to this sector are financial and/or economic in nature for education and awareness alone would not be sufficient for promoting its practices. This is because the practice of SLM is costly when compared to cost of engaging in cultivation. This is an important barrier that impacts the poorer farmers. The report further states that considering the offsite social and environmental benefits which SLM practices could bring about, these practices should qualify for subsidies and other state support mechanisms.
2. Health: The main direct threats posed to human health by climate change are as follows:
   i.    Vector borne diseases-essentially mosquito borne diseases
   ii.    Rodent borne diseases.
   iii.    Food and water borne diseases,
   iv.    Nutritional status.
   v.    Other environment related disorders
   In Sri Lanka the health sector has been identified as one of the most critical sectors facing climate change vulnerability according to sector vulnerability profiles developed for Sri Lanka in 2010.  
   Although Climate Change Secretatiat, (2014) was as detailed about identifying adaptation technologies in the health sector they were of little relevance to sustainable land management.
3. Water: Climate change is expected to impact the precipitation of the Northeast monsoon and the Southwest monsoons by reducing the former by 34% and increasing the latter by 38%, this would cause the dry zone more drought prone while the wet zone would be flood prone and more at risk from landslides. These would have the knock on impacts of expanding the dry zone and reducing the percapita water availability of its footprint, due to the wet zone becoming flood prone the groundwater recharge rates would and the quality of the surface waters would decrease while the generation/transport of sediments would increase. Due to sea level rise, sea water intrusion would result in the increase in the salinity of surface water in coastal areas.
   Among the identified adaptation technologies in the water sector, technological solutions such as rainwater harvesting and surface runoff harvesting were identified to compliment the SLM practices which were discussed during the Consultative Workshop on Evaluation of Ecosystem Services and Development of Innovative Financing Mechanism to Promote Sustainable Land Management in the Central Highlands. This workshop was held at NAICC, Gannoruwa, Peradeniya on the 25th of March 2019. The former was ranked second in the order of priority among the 7 identified technological options and therefore was studied more in depth.  
   Community participatory activities were expected to assist with developing 400 rooftop rain water harvesting systems in households/schools/hospitals/suitable buildings in the dry zone. Identified economic and financial barriers for rainwater harvesting include the high capital cost and the lack of benefits. The non-financial barriers include lack of standards and codes for certified harvesting systems and inefficient enforcement of national rainwater harvesting policies, lack of information and awareness about the design of such systems and data which would improve these systems and other social, cultural and behavioural information and awareness.  
4. Coastal Resources and Biodiversity: While the assessment on coastal resources clearly had little to contribute to the FAO SLM project, the Biodiversity sector also focused mainly on species conservation and not the nexus between SLM practices and biodiversity. 

(Climate Change Secretatiat, 2014)