Climate change adaptation (CCA) is a key priority of the Philippine government, reflected in numerous policies and programs aimed at mitigating its extreme impacts. Government agencies and non-government organizations are intensively working to enhance CCA through strengthening institutional, organizational, and human capacity.
Mariano Marcos State University thoroughly studied the adaptation strategies of rice farmers, zanjeras, and local government units (LGUs) in Ilocos Norte. This highlights the importance of location and context-specific CCA strategies for rice-based production of rural households in the province.
The farming households and communities significantly felt the impacts of the climatic change on rice-based production. Their adaptation strategies were influenced by their observations and experiences. The changes in temperature, rainfall pattern, frequency of occurrence, distribution, intensity, and extreme typhoons reckoned five years back were the important farmers’ indicators of climate change. The major impacts of the changing climate included the unpredictability of the onset of rain, the flooding, and the sedimentation of the Padsan River Basin (PRB), which resulted in crop failure and huge rice production loss. These experiences led them to adopt strategies like adjusting the cropping calendar and using appropriate rice cultivars. Zanjera farmers constructed diversion dams called “arbeng” made of brush, wood, and like materials to cope with dry spells during the wet season cropping and scarcity of irrigation water. Although temporary, this is their only resort for sustaining the irrigation requirement of rice production in their area.
The LGU’s CCA programs and strategies were in the form of rice seed loan assistance, hazard mapping, and dam repair and rehabilitation of irrigation and flood control structures. Identified as important considerations in the planning, designing, and implementation of CCA programs included financial stability, acceptability of the program, participation of target beneficiaries, sustainability of the program, economic or technical feasibility, and political, social, and cultural constraints.