Between heavy rain and sea level rise

Abstract

This manual is a product of the Climate Resilient Agriculture Investigation and Innovation project (CRAIIP). It presents the Climate Field Lab approach and provides tools for climate change adaptation by smallholder farmers in two rural regions in Indonesia. The Climate Field Lab adheres to transdisciplinary adaptation co-research through a science-practice partnership on agroecological farming. Co-research implies that farmers are local experts in cooperating actively with nature and its weather variability. Alas, the impacts of climate change aggravate farming through the increased frequency and magnitude of climate-related extremes. As a consequence, farmers are faced with the continuous need to build their adaptive capacities through co-creation of knowledge in a dialogue with their communities, with scientists and with climate change experts. Between 2016 and 2019, the Indonesian-German CRAIIP team consisting of co-research farmers, two farmers’ organisations/NGOs, as well as scientists of three universities, applied various cocreation tools for building the adaptive capacity in Climate Field Labs in two regions. An estimated 100 smallholder farmers, women and men, from West and Central Java and South Sulawesi took part in the solution-oriented research. This manual is directed towards scholars, students, trainers and development experts. It offers a set of instruments that aim at broadening their spectrum for approaches, methods and tools of participatory adaptation co-research, directed towards their own research and development work. All tools presented in this handbook were tested in farmerled research processes, which included demonstrations on stress-resilient rice varieties, improved agro-ecological soil fertility strategies in rice, and the organic cultivation of local chilli pepper varieties. The manual starts with the climate change situation in Indonesia (part 2). The concept for cocreation of knowledge in the Climate Field Lab is explained in part 3. Part 4 presents the 18 tools used in the Climate Field Lab illustrated by examples, useful materials and numerous practical tips applicable for own adaptation co-research. Part 5 includes the annexes, provides an overview of all information and training materials, as well as including scientific articles produced throughout the course of the project CRAIIP. The CRAIIP partners wish to get in touch with other science-practice networks to help to build climate resilience of smallholder farmers through co-creation of knowledge, agro-ecological approaches and to advocate and spread the use of adaptation co-research as a research method.