Piloting a tool to assess climate change vulnerability among cocoa producers. The case of Jembrana, Bali, Indonesia

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Adaptation strategies 
 
According to FAO estimates, if current global income and consumption growth trends do not 
decrease by 2050, agricultural production will have to increase by 60% to satisfy future demand. 
Meeting this goal will be more difficult due to climate change’s adverse impacts on agriculture, for 
which a quick and effective adaptation strategy  is tremendously needed (FAO, 2013). Notably, 
developing countries are being hit hard by this phenomenon, with many small-scale producers 
lacking knowledge about potential adaptation options for their productive systems. These often 
have limited resources, assets and risk-taking capacity, and can rarely access production-enhancing 
technologies and financial support (Reddy, 2015).  
 
At the core of a sustainable adaptation process lies farmers’ capacity to implement a transition to a 
new system. This new system is characterized by higher productivity, more efficiency in using inputs, 
less variability and greater stability in outputs, and an increased resilience to risks, shocks and long-
term climate variability. This can ultimately enhance food security, while preserving the natural 
resource base and vital ecosystem services. This process is hence a major one, requiring a shift in 
the way land, water, soil nutrients and genetic resources are managed (FAO, 2013). Furthermore, 
adaptation is not costless. Producers would need to invest financial resources, effort, and their time, 
with the related opportunity costs of not engaging in alternative profitable activities. A key criterion 
for good adaptation is, thus, its cost-effectiveness.  
 
When looking into the advantages of adaptation, we must assess the potential future impacts of 
climate change: the stronger they are projected to be, the stronger the benefits from adaptation can 
be. In the case of smallholder cocoa producers, it is widely recognized that only a forward-looking 
adaptation approach can ensure sustainable production, by enabling stakeholders to avoid 
catastrophic effects (Bunn et al., 2017; FAO, 2013). Designing an adaptation strategy requires to fulfill 
a series of steps, starting by evaluating the degree of climate change impacts and ending with 
implementing specific short and long-term practices.   
 
Here is a list of common climate change adaptation practices in cocoa production (Goenadi et al., 
2012):
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Short-term adaptation: 
 
• Soil water management 
• Irrigation 
• Shade management 
• Soil tillage 
• Fertilization 
• Plant strengthening and crop 
protection 
 
Long-term adaptation: 
 
• Superior clone selection 
• Agroforestry 
• Rainwater harvesting 
• Soil resource protection 
• Soil conservation 
• Pest and disease control 
• Climate monitoring and response
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Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA)  
 
Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) has been developed by FAO, which launched it in 2010 as an 
approach combining the three dimensions of sustainable development (economic, social, and 
environmental) aiming to reach three main objectives (FAO, 2010): 
• Sustainably increase food security by enhancing agricultural productivity and farmers’ 
incomes 
• Build resilience and adapt to climate change 
• Reduce and/or remove greenhouse gas emissions, where possible. 
It was designed through to the work of FAO’s MICCA (Mitigation of Climate Change in 
Agriculture) program, which provided evidence that climate-smart agricultural practices can 
improve local communities’ capacities to adapt to climate change, while simultaneously 
reducing agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. 
The concept of CSA is not articulated as a single agricultural technology, nor as a defined set 
of practices, but rather as a flexible system depending on site-specific assessments guiding 
the identification of suitable practices (FAO, 2013). It is an integrated production approach, 
combining several sustainable agriculture methods and involving best management methods, 
tailored to specific crops, landcsapes and origins. Identification of relevant CSA practices 
starts by assessing local climate-change related risks and vulnerability. Afterwards, it involves 
selecting adaptation practices, providing farmers with a pathway to become more productive 
and resilient to climate change impacts.  (Rainforest Alliance, 2020).  
According to the Rainforest Alliance, which has over a decade of experience implementing 
them in many areas of the world, localized CSA practices is linked to positive impacts on food 
systems, with farmers reporting dramatic increases in production, pest control and other 
effects (Saeed, 2020). 
Key CSA strategies include: water management; soil conservation, promotion of biodiversity 
and natural vegetation, crop productivity, and improved farm management. All these aspects 
are part of the tool we have analyzed in this thesis and are thoroughly detailed in the 
Materials and Methods chapter. These principles are embedded in the Rainforest Alliance’s
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Sustainable Agriculture Standard, where the tool will play a key role in assessing farmers’ 
climate change risk and in developing a roadmap for increased resilience (Saeed, 2020). By 
evaluating vulnerability at farm level, the tool provides users with a simple but comprehensive 
overview of their main climate-change related risks, highlighting specific needs in terms of 
adaptation, and proposing practices contributing to build more resilient livelihoods and 
ultimately securing the future of cocoa. Hence, using the tool as part of the certification 
program can enable farmers to better address short, medium, and long-term climate 
variability and impacts. 
 
What we know: relevant literature in state of the Art 
If our aim is to assess a tool’s capacity to measure vulnerability to climate change in agriculture 
and propose effective adaptive practices, we need to primarily review what other approaches, 
methods and tools currently exist for this aim. When looking at literature in this field, we find 
a conspicuous number of resources, which can be divided in two main groups: 
 
• Literature on climate change vulnerability assessment in agriculture. 
• Literature on adaptation methods to climate change, which include practices like 
Climate-Smart Agriculture, Good Agriculture Practices, regenerative agriculture and 
many others. 
Having our tool been created to meet both those goals, we will examine relevant research on 
the two aspects. Moreover, as a great amount of useful information on these topics originates 
from international development organizations, institutions and governments (Schipper et al., 
2010), we will also consider ‘grey literature’ in our review.  
 
In terms of methods and tools to assess vulnerability to climate change, the first impression 
from scanning available resources is that there is a wide range of approaches, because of both 
the variety of contexts of application, and the continuous need for new and innovative tools 
(Schipper et al., 2010). This partially originates from the fact that a great diversity in the 
interpretations of vulnerability gives rise to a diversity of methods and tools to assess it. 
Methods, in fact, are closely related to the concepts and interpretations of vulnerability.
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Furthermore, vulnerability and adaptation are highly place-based, context-specific and sector 
related, and thus change their nature based on the specific purpose and project they are 
designed for (IPCC, 2007). Narrowing down our research, we can find a more limited number 
of resources specifically on cocoa production and/or on our geographical area of focus (South-
East Asia, Indonesia). 
 
Within the approaches, the main sources of variation are methodological approaches (e.g. 
experimental, modelling, meta-analysis, survey-based), relative roles of natural and social 
sciences (purely biophysical models or combinations with economics), time horizon, spatial 
scale, and degree of stakeholder involvement (Fellmann, 2012). These methods range from 
complex models to assess climate change impacts to guidelines to identify, design, and 
implement adaptation measures (Schipper et al., 2010). Another relevant source of variation 
is the overall approach, which Dessai and Hulme (2003) define as Top-Down and Bottom-Up, 
with the main difference between the two being the strongly participatory nature of the latter.  
 
A commonality among most of the approaches is the type of process and steps they follow in 
their analysis, often beginning with assessing vulnerability and adaptive capacities (which can 
involve specific tools and methodologies), proceeding with identifying adaptation options (in 
particular, which aspects need to be addressed and in what way) and finally designing bespoke 
adaptation measures (Schipper et al., 2010).  
 
The main criteria behind the creation of our tool were the following: 
• Simplicity 
• Replicability 
• Specificity for cocoa, coffee and tea producers in developing countries 
• Possibility to be independently and autonomously used by farmers 
• Main focus on the agricultural aspects of vulnerability 
• Rapidity in providing results and adaptation options. 
 
Most of these features are either not present, or do not coexist, in the methods and tools 
currently available in literature. Therefore, this thesis wants to contribute to design a new
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tool specifically fulfilling the criteria presented above. Creating a tool that can be 
autonomously used by farmers, providing them with insights into their context-specific risks, 
and possible adaptation measures, is extremely relevant in a time of great uncertainty about 
future climate impacts. However, it is important to highlight this type of assessment needs to 
be accompanied by up-to-date informative and capacity building interventions for producers, 
extension officers and other stakeholders, in order to be effective (Saeed, 2020).  
CSA is not a ready-to-use method, nor a system which can easily be replicated in different 
areas and contexts of the world without guidance. It has the potential for far-reaching positive 
impacts on agricultural systems, but scaling it up requires site-specific assessments, which can 
be challenging, often because of a lack of dedicated tools (FAO, 2013). Developing such an 
instrument can facilitate this process, functioning as a means to collect location-specific 
information and effectively identify useful practices for adaptation. The existence of a high 
number of approaches and methods for climate change vulnerability assessment confirms 
that a one-size-fits-all approach often does not satisfy practitioners’ and communities’ needs, 
who are constantly developing new methods and looking for ways to better capture their 
reality.  Hence, what is needed is more research and testing for context-specific tools. This 
work’s ambition is precisely to meet this goal. 
Objectives 
In the framework of the Rainforest Alliance’s certification program and its overall objective to 
improve farming systems’ resilience, this work aims to analyze the pilot project implemented 
to test a tool assessing farmers’ vulnerability to climate change. The project has focused on 
cocoa production in the district of Jembrana, Bali province, Indonesia.   
 
Our research is two-fold: 
 
a) Analyze the data collected during the assessment and comment its results in terms of 
farmers’ vulnerability levels and adaptive capacities, with a focus on the role of young 
farmers and women.