Climate change, agriculture and health

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Climate change, agriculture and health

• Stuart Gillespie
• Senior Research Fellow
• International Food Policy Research Institute
• UKCDS, London, 29 May 2008

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Agriculture Climate change
Health
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CC and food

• Gradual build-up of pressure on systems
• via changes in temperature, precipitation, sea
  level
• Increased frequency severity of extreme events
• Further shift in distribution of hunger to Africa
• Vulnerability (exposure, sensitivity, adaptive
  capacity)
• multiple livelihood stressors and modifiers
• complex, localised impacts on smallholders,
  pastoralists
• women, children, elderly most vulnerable
• Food availability, stability, access (prices),
  utilization all affected

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CC and health

• Direct and indirect impacts (via water, food, air
  etc)
• Malnutrition
• Vector-borne disease (malaria, dengue)
• Diarrhoeal disease (water, sanitation)
• Cardio-respiratory (heatwaves, pollution)
• Deaths and injuries (extreme events, social
  disruptions)
• HIV and AIDS

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CC HIV pathways

• CC affects HIV vulnerability (upstream) and
  ability to respond to AIDS impacts (downstream).
  AIDS constrains capacity to adapt to CC.
• Food, nutrition
• Farming, natural resource management
• Health
• Malaria, TB, dengue
• Social disruptions
• Capacity, governance

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HIV and Climate Change (UNEP/UNAIDS, Nyon, 20
May 2008)
Pre-existing food insecurity
Envtl disasters, Physical hazards, Livelihood
loss, Resource conflicts
Population displacement
(farm-workers)
Decreased food yields
Inequality/poverty
Climate change
Under-nutrition
Social disruptions
eg dysentery
Other Inf Diseases
Transactional and coercive sex IV drug use
eg malaria
Immune impairment
HIV AIDS
Weak capacity governance
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Issues and challenges (learning from HIV)

• Denialism
• Global or local?
• Techno-fixation (e.g. medicalization of HIV
  response)
• Polarization (e.g. either nutrition or ARVs?)
• balance mitigation (technical) with adaptation
  (social solutions)
• Long-wave, synchrony
• AIDS research has looked backwards, CC looks
  forwards
• both need longitudinal surveillance, cohort
  studies
• Systemic, not sectoral
• implications for institutional frameworks and
  governance
• Multidisciplinary networks
• climate, energy, agriculture, health, social
  scientists

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Agriculture Climate change
Health
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• Nutrition, diet and health
• Food-borne disease, food safety, supply chains
• Water-related disease and water management
• Animal diseases, avian flu and livelihoods
• HIV/AIDS and agriculture
• Occupational health

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Source Hawkes and Ruel 2006