Seminar on the potential impacts of climate change on coffee and possible responses in the Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic has found itself exposed to more frequent droughts and flooding in recent years, along with higher temperatures and various hurricanes, placing numerous Dominican families in greater vulnerability.  Climate change represents a threat to food security and nutrition, living conditions, and rural population incomes because it affects agricultural activity, including basic foods and exports such as coffee. Thus, the challenge is to transition to more sustainable and inclusive agriculture to protect both the farm-based rural poor, as well as city-based food consumers.

The ministries of agriculture of the CAC and Dominican Republic both enter in the third phase of the ECC-CARD initiative. This phase includes a component for the Dominican Republic where technical cooperation to analyze the impacts of climate change on agriculture, specifically in the coffee sector, is agreed upon. This falls in line with requests made by the Ministry of Agriculture, the National Council on Climate Change and Mechanism for Clean Development (CNCCMDL), and the Dominican Coffee Council (CODOCAFE) which is now the Dominican Coffee Institute (INDOCAFE).

The results and analytical process done to fulfill these requests were presented in this seminar. They were supported by important contributions in the form of data from national institutions such as the National Hydraulic Resources Institute (INDHRI), the National Office of Meteorology (ONAMET), and also on the regional level in the case of the Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin American and the Caribbean (CATHALAC). To provide records useful to the country that are both full and complete, support was also given in the form of technical consulting to update and process historical temperature and precipitation data with synthesized meteorological databases, using a methodology that combines meteorological atmospheric model databases with actual records from Nationals Meteorological Services. CODOCAFE also provided databases with coffee yields by province. With these resources, along with other socio-economic variables, production models were made that estimate the effect of climate variables on coffee yields in both a historical timeframe, as well as in climate change scenarios. Both the technical database consultation and the workshop were financed with funds from the BID/NDF “Impact of Climate Change and Policy Options for Central America and the Dominican Republic” project. ECLAC contributed by assigning technical officers to this cooperative effort.

Event Objectives

• Contribute to the discussion on options for the coffee sector in response to climate change through technical analysis and discussions on the potential impacts of climate change this sector of production.
• Increase knowledge about climate change and data management to analyze potential impacts.
• Facilitate a discussion about the coffee production challenges and lines of action to respond to the effects of climate change.

Participants

• Technical officers at the national level primarily responsible for the agriculture and coffee sectors.
• Technical officers at the national level from institutions that work with climate data, public investment agricultural projects, or others who could make use of this technical knowledge.

Conclusions and Recommendations

• Evaluate various implementation measures to ensure the mitigation effect from the coffee subsector, and the co-benefits that could be achieved through already contemplated activities or a reasonable additional effort.
• Make evident the potential co-benefits from the proposed measures based on their impact on the economic situation, the wellbeing of producers and their families, other positive environmental or sustainability effects, and in their contribution to a transition towards low greenhouse gas emissions sustainable economies.
• Expedite having certified farms with estimates for greenhouse gas, water, and environmental footprints, which could contribute to estimating subsector emissions as a greater national reference.
• Take actions to develop more local agroclimate analyses and produce special bulletins for coffee-growing zones with short term weather advisories.
• Improve communications strategies about the results of climate change research geared towards producers and research-based actions benefiting them by expanding their opportunities for mitigation and adaptation.
• Finally, various recommendations were made related to the four proposed lines of action in the NAMA profile: reduce the use of nitrogen-based fertilizers and N20 emissions, avoid methane emissions through better treatment and use of coffee wastewater, better use and management of biomass as a source of energy in place of wood, and carbon capture through the expansion of agroforestry systems.