Experts and scientists suggested that more researches should be conducted on how to tackle the negative impact of climate change in Bangladesh.
The recommendations were made in the opening session of a 4-day long conference on climate change in the capital yesterday.
Gobeshona, a knowledge network for researches on climate change in Bangladesh, organised the conference at the Independent University, Bangladesh.
Experts and researchers from home and abroad are taking part in the conference.
Extensive researches on producing new varieties of salinity and drought tolerant crops are urgent for the country to ensure its food security, said Dr Ainun Nishat, hydrologist and environmental expert.
The county is facing a great threat to ensure its food security because of global warming, he said.
Although the government has taken a number of initiatives to develop extreme climate tolerant crops varieties, the volume of the initiative is not satisfactory, he added.
Findings of the study titled “Climate Change and Wheat Production in Drought Prone Areas of Bangladesh: A Technical Efficiency Analysis” were presented at the conference.
According to the study, wheat production has decreased by 17.4 percent on an average over the past few years due to drought occurrence in the country.
Presenting the findings of the study, ASM Golam Hafeez, an associate professor of Bangladesh Agricultural University, said the quality of seed, pesticide, farmland, irrigation and fertilizer play a significant role in the production of wheat.
Of those, the irrigation is directly related to climate change, he said.
Citing the example of Bari-37, a heat tolerant wheat variety, Ainun Nishat said the state-run Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (Bari) has developed this wheat variety.
The cultivation of the wheat variety has yielded a good result in the Barind Tract which is considered as a drought prone area in the country, he said.
Another state-run research organisation Bangladesh Rice Research Institute has also developed many varieties of rices which can tolerate extreme climate like saline, drought and submergence, he said.
But the rice varieties are yet to get popularity among the farmers as most of those are beyond the current salinity level in Bangladesh, said Ainun Nishat who is also a professor emeritus of Brac University.
The salinity level is increasing day by day in the south-western part of the country, he added.
Echoing with Ainun Nishat, Water Resources Minister Anisul Islam Mahmud said the government has planned to increase the height of embankments the country’s coastal region.
“We are also planning to protect the mighty rivers like Brahmaputra by building embankments,” he said.
“But, we have lack of fund to implement the projects,” he added.
Regarding the fund constrain, Dr Atiq Rahman, executive director of Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS), though the industrialised countries responsible for global warming are yet to create big amount of funds, still there are some climate fund for taking adaptation measures.
The government can get the funds by proving its capacity to spend those in a rational way, he said.
Regarding the importance of research to tackle the negative impact of climate change, Dr Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), said: “We need to bring the knowledge in a common platform to solve the problem like climate change, collectively.”
According to the 5th assessment report of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the production of crops and livelihood of many people may be affected badly of the country because of it’s exposure to sea-level rise and extreme calamities like salinity intrusion, drought, erratic rainfall and tidal surge.
In the Indo-Gangetic Plains of South Asia, there could be a decrease of about 50 percent in the most favorable and high yielding wheat area due to heat stress if CO2 levels are doubled, it said.
