A supply chain approach to climate action in the Australian seafood supply chainsAustralia

Background

Climate change impacts are a key consideration for the Australian seafood industry, which includes both fisheries and aquaculture. Changes to productivity and/or geographical distribution are envisaged as a direct impact of climate change. Indirect impacts, such as increased competition from other nations, increase in transportation costs due to carbon taxes, impacts on post-harvest infrastructure, are also likely. To date, research and adaptation efforts have largely focused on the production aspects of the industry, since stakeholders perceive climate change impacts as a product supply issue.

However, a recent study by Lim-Camacho et al. (2014) 1 found that a holistic food system approach, which examines the entire seafood supply chain, offers chain-wide adaptation strategies such as relocation to less vulnerable and more accessible areas, vertical integration of operations, better use of climate information, improvement of storage infrastructure, increasing resource use efficiency, and diversification of product offerings. Improving communication and product promotion strategies, together with efforts to strengthen the relationship between producers and customers, were seen as key demand side interventions to enhance competitiveness. In addition to addressing climate change impacts, these strategies help stakeholders achieve commercial objectives. These findings are important and call for systems level thinking and approaches to adaptation planning, which offer multiple benefits to stakeholders.

Relationship to CSA

The Lim-Camacho et al. (2014) 1 study identifies opportunities to implement chain-wide adaptation strategies within the Australian seafood industry. Many of the interventions identified implicitly contribute to increasing productivity and incomes, strengthening the industry’s resilience to climate change and in some cases also offer mitigation benefits. Through careful design, it is possible to ensure that these interventions contribute to CSA pillars.

Impacts and lessons learned

The study found that greater coordination within the industry allows stakeholders to determine the chain-wide effects of strategies put in place in one part of the chain, and thus avoid maladaptation.

References

  • 1

    Lim-Camacho L, Hobday AJ, Bustamante RH, (…), van Putten I. 2014. Facing the wave of change: stakeholder perspectives on climate adaptation for Australian seafood supply chains. Regional Environmental Change 15(4):595-606.

    http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10113-014-0670-4 Climate change is one of the most important issues confronting the sustainable supply of seafood, with projections suggesting major effects on wild and farmed fisheries worldwide. While climate change has been a consideration for Australian fisheries and aquaculture management, emphasis in both research and adaptation effort has been at the production end of supply chains—impacts further along the chain have been overlooked to date. A holistic biophysical and socio-economic system view of seafood industries, as represented by end-to-end supply chains, may lead to an additional set of options in the face of climate change, thus maximizing opportunities for improved fishery profitability, while also reducing the potential for maladaptation. In this paper, we explore Australian seafood industry stakeholder perspectives on potential options for adaptation along seafood supply chains based on future potential scenarios. Stakeholders, representing wild capture and aquaculture industries, provided a range of actions targeting different stages of the supply chain. Overall, proposed strategies were predominantly related to the production end of the supply chain, suggesting that greater attention in developing adaptation options is needed at post-production stages. However, there are chain-wide adaptation strategies that can present win–win scenarios, where commercial objectives beyond adaptation can also be addressed alongside direct or indirect impacts of climate. Likewise, certain adaptation strategies in place at one stage of the chain may have varying implications on other stages of the chain. These findings represent an important step in understanding the role of supply chains in effective adaptation of fisheries and aquaculture industries to climate change.

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CCAFS Climate-Smart Agriculture 101

The basics

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an integrative approach to address these interlinked challenges of food security and climate change, that explicitly aims for three objectives:

A. Sustainably increasing agricultural productivity, to support equitable increases in farm incomes, food security and development;

B. Adapting and building resilience of agricultural and food security systems to climate change at multiple levels; and

C. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture (including crops, livestock and fisheries).

Entry points

Agriculture affects and is affected by climate change in a wide range of ways and there are numerous entry points for initiating CSA programmes or enhancing existing activities. Productivity, mitigation and adaptation actions can take place at different technological, organizational, institutional and political levels. To help you navigate these myriad entry points we have grouped them under three Thematic Areas: (i) CSA practices, (ii) CSA systems approaches, and (iii) Enabling environments for CSA. Each entry point is then described and analysed in terms of productivity, adoption and mitigation potential and is illustrated with cases studies, references and internet links for further information.

Develop a CSA plan

Planning for, implementing and monitoring CSA projects and programmes evolves around issues of understanding the context including identification of major problems/barriers and opportunities related to the focus of the programme; developing and prioritizing solutions and designing plans; implementation; and monitoring and evaluation. Most major development agencies have their own framework for project and programme formulation and management but CCAFS has developed a specific approach for planning, implementing and assessing CSA projects and programme called CSA plan. CSA plan was developed to provide a guide for operationalizing CSA planning, implementation and monitoring at scale. CSA plan consist of four major components: (1) Situation analysis; (2) Targeting and prioritizing; (3) Program support; and (4) Monitoring. evaluation and learning.

Finance

To meet the objectives of CSA, such as agricultural development, food security and climate change adaptation and mitigation, a number of potential funding sources are available. For instance, climate finance sources may be used to leverage agriculture finance and mainstream climate change into agricultural investments. This section offers an overview of potential sources of funding for activities in climate-smart agriculture (CSA) at national, regional and international levels and for a number of different potential ‘clients’ including governments, civil society, development organizations and others. Additionally, it includes options to search among a range of funding opportunities according to CSA focus area, sector and financing instrument.

Resource library

CSA Guide provides a short and concise introduction and overview of the multifaceted aspects of climate-smart agriculture. At the same time it offers links to references and key resources that allows for further investigations and understanding of specific topics of interest. In the resource library we have gathered all the references, key resources, terms and questions in one place for a quick overview and easy access that can be used as a part of or independently of the other sections of the website. The resource library is divided into six sections; (1) References – list all publications, links and blogs referred to on the website; (2) Tools – list all the CSA tools presented on the website; (3) Key terms – explains the most important and frequently used terms related to CSA; (4) Frequently asked questions (FAQ) – provides a rapid overview of the most common questions asked on climate-smart agriculture; (5) About – where you can find out more about the purpose and structure of, as well as on the organizations and authors behind the website; (6) Contact.

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