Adaptation Options in Agriculture to Climate Change: a Typology

Adaptation in agriculture to climate change is important for impact and vulnerability assessment and for the development of climate change policy. A wide variety of adaptation options has been proposed as having the potential to reduce vulnerability of agricultural systems to risks related to climate change, often in an ad hoc fashion. This paper develops a typology of adaptation to systematically classify and characterize agricultural adaptation options to climate change, drawing primarily on the Canadian situation. In particular, it differentiates adaptation options in agriculture according to the involvement of different agents (producers, industries, governments); the intent, timing and duration of employment of the adaptation; the form and type of the adaptive measure; and the relationship to processes already in place to cope with risks associated with climate stresses. A synthesis of research on adaptation options in Canadian agriculture identifies four main categories: (i) technological developments, (ii) government programs and insurance, (iii) farm production practices, and (iv) farm financial management. In addition to these ‘direct adaptations’, there are options, particularly information provision, that may stimulate adaptation initiatives. The results reveal that most adaptation options are modifications to on-going farm practices and public policy decisionmaking processes with respect to a suite of changing climatic (including variability and extremes) and non-climatic conditions (political, economic and social). For progress on implementing adaptations to climate change in agriculture there is a need to better understand the relationship between potential adaptation options and existing farm-level and government decision-making processes and risk management frameworks.