Stakeholder-led adaptation strategies to climate change

Full project title

Stakeholder-led adaptation strategies to climate change

Project description

Agricultural production across the globe is increasingly impacted by climate change. Transitioning to climate-resilient agricultural practices is essential as climate impacts on agriculture have cascading social, economic, and environmental effects. Successful adaptations that result in resilient systems largely depend on local conditions and cultural norms.

In this study, we focus on El Salvador as a largely agricultural nation. Specifically, we focus on coffee agriculture, as it is the largest agriculture commodity of El Salvador and it is highly vulnerable to climate change. The government of El Salvador has recently adopted a major agricultural policy reform in the hopes of climate-proofing the declining agricultural sector. Such types of macro-level policies can encounter challenges in the so-called downscaling process, i.e., when seeking to be implemented at the regional and local levels. The associated challenges include the limited availability of existing resources, conflicting local adaptation priorities, and the fair distribution of benefits and burdens across stakeholders and future generations.

This seed project aims to address this governance challenge by enabling a wide range of stakeholders in the agricultural sector to engage in a participatory process to generate new knowledge and support the transition to climate-resilient agricultural practices at the local scale.