Adaptation Strategies for Asian Farmers Against Climate Change

The agricultural sector and farming households in less developed economies, particularly in Asia, are becoming more vulnerable to climate change. Climate-stimulated reduction of farming yields leads to less income, weakened food security, and, eventually, poverty. Thus, the adaptation strategies of Asian farming communities are critical to achieving various Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including but not limited to Goals 1 (No Poverty), 2 (Zero Hunger), 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), and 13 (Climate Action). This chapter reviews existing and potential adaptation strategies for risk-prone farming communities in Asia against climate change. Systematically, this study employs a PRISMA-guided approach to retrieve the most relevant documents from the Web of Science™ and Scopus® databases published between January 2015 and December 2021. This chapter restricts its criteria to review any adaptation strategy practiced by farmers and their communities in Asia against climate change and climate-induced hazards. Conducted in January 2022, the searches and selection gathered 63 documents as review materials. Applying content analysis to the selected articles reveals that adaptation strategies are the cushions of farming communities against the adverse effects of climate change in Asia, including floods, droughts, and riverbank erosions. There are five key areas for practicing adaptation strategies, i.e., livelihood diversification, agricultural diversification, risk management, land/crop management, and farm and income management. This study synthesizes the findings as transformative, systemic, and systematic adaptation strategies to showcase their applicability to the agricultural sector in Asia. Given adequate effort and support, the five key areas in three dimensions would strengthen the fundamental characteristics of Asian farming communities to meet the relevant SDGs.