Agricultural Production in Egypt: Assessing Vulnerability and Enhancing Adaptive Capacity and Resilience to Climate Change

Abstract

The international community has developed the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that include specific elements to enhance sustainable agricultural production and food security. SDG 13 “take urgent actions to combat climate change and its impacts” calls for enhancing the adaptive capacity and build resilience to climate change as well as mainstreaming climate change measures into policies and planning processes of the countries. According to the IPCC assessment, Near East North Africa is one of the world regions that are most vulnerable to climatic change and consequently, agriculture is the most affected sector. It is anticipated that such a climate change impact would reduce crop yield up to 30%. Within the ‘Regional Initiative for the Assessment of the Impact of Climate Change on Water Resources and Socio-Economic Vulnerability in the Arab Region’ (RICCAR), the impact of climate change on specific agriculture sectors was projected using the two considered climate scenarios, based on selected Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP), specifically RCP 4.5 (moderate-case scenario) and RCP 8.5 (worst-case scenario). Based on the RICCARD projections, the vulnerability of the agricultural sectors in the Arab Region to climate change have few aspects. Environmental challenges in the Arab world include water scarcity, with the lowest freshwater resource endowment in the world and very low precipitation with excessive exposure to extreme events. The Arab Region is one of the most impacted regions by climate change with half of its area’s cropland systems producing wheat, maize, olives, potatoes, olives and vegetables are considered high vulnerable to climate change. Livestock production as well is expected to decline due to drought, increase in degradation of rangelands and desertification. Expected more drought cycles in addition to increasing deforestation rate add to the challenges facing the forestry sector in the region. Egypt is considered as one of the countries that are greatly impacted by the climate change. The vulnerability of Egypt to climate change is significant in all agriculture sectors: cropping, fishery and livestock. Developing strategy to enhancing adaptive capacity and resilience to climate change in Egypt requires coordination and integration between the main related national strategies such as Egypt’s Vision 2030 [1], the Sustainable Agricultural Development Strategy [2], and Egypt’s National Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction [3]. Climate change adaptation is of paramount importance to agriculture, given the reliance of the sector on climate. Climate change adaptation policies should be based on science, and incorporate knowledge of indigenous peoples and traditional practices.