This is a TOT presentation made on Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for the project - Building Resilience and Strengthening Community Disaster Preparedness in Sri Lanka

1. Resource Person – Dr. P.B. Dharmasena
Building Resilience and Strengthening Community
Disaster Preparedness in Sri Lanka
TRAINING OF TRAINERS
PROGRAMME - 3
Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
Strategies

2. Climate Change Mitigation and
Adaptation Strategies
CONTENT
Strategies to reduce greenhouse gas
emission
Can we increase carbon
sequestration?
Evergreen agro-ecosystems
Food-forest garden concept
Land management practices to
increase carbon sequestration in
farm lands
Agricultural GHGs reduction
targets

3. Climate Change due to Greenhouse gas emission
Agriculture including livestock production contributes to
greenhouse gas emission

4. Enteric
fermentation
(26.6%)
Manure
Management
(3.9 %)
Cultivation of
Organic soils
(16.1 %)
Rice
Cultivation
(52.4 %)
Burning of Crop
Residues(1.0 %)
GHG emission from Agriculture in Sri Lanka (2015)
25 %

5. Strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emission
• Enteric fermentation – improve quality of animal feed
• Use of paddy straws as a raw material for fuel and paper
industry
• Use alternatives for chemical fertilizer
– Ecological agriculture
– Organic farming
– Bio-dynamic agriculture
• Eco-friendly agriculture
• Evergreen agro-ecosystem concept
• Use of Bio-char to improve soil fertility
• Conservation farming – minimum tillage, contour
farming, terraced farming

6. • Use fast digestible animal
feed
– Legume tree parts like
gliricidia contain low
fibre content can be
mixed for the feed. Straw
and concentrates can be
used to mix with legume
tree parts.
• Animal comfort (heat stress
management)
– Productivity of animals
will increase while
methane emission is
reduced
Enteric fermentation should be reduced

7. • It can be used for
manufacturing papers, card
boards, wrapping materials
and also producing bio-fuel
boxes.
• To establish a healthy soil
for polyculture farming
• Promote paddy cultivation
for non-flooding soils
• Practice good management
methods for soil and water
conservation especially in
large scale farms, where 2-3
crops a year are grown
Use Rice straws for other purposes without mixing with soil

8. • Integration with organic fertilizers (Organic
Farming),
• Promote slow/controlled N-releasing
fertilizers and increase their effectiveness
• Deep placement and reduction of frequency
of application of N fertilizer
• Use of N transformation inhibitors to scale
back the hydrolysis of urea to ammonium by
soil urease enzyme.
• Adjust fertilizer rates to coincide with plant
needs
• Place fertilizer near plant roots ;
• Apply fertilizer several times each year,
rather than only once;
• Adopt IPNS (Integrated Plant Nutrition
System) approach
• Adopt Climate Smart Agriculture
Use of alternatives to chemical fertilizer to reduce
N2O emission

9. • Main activities
–Manure
management in soils
–Crop residue
management in
agricultural fields
–Management of
organic soils to
minimize N2O
emissions
Reduction of N2O emission in soils due to microbial activities

10. Can carbon sequestration be increased in soils?
• Minimize tillage operations.
• Restore degraded land, improving pasture management.
• Reduce fallow periods.
• Add animal manures to the soil.
• Crop residue management.
• Use legumes and/or grasses in crop rotations.
• Convert marginal cropland to perennial grass or agroforestry
systems.
• Use rotational grazing and high-intensity/short-duration grazing.
• Plant shrubs and trees as shelterbelts.
• Restore wetlands.
• Adoption of new concepts
– Evergreen agro-ecosystem
– Food – forest gardens

11. New Concept Emerged!
Evergreen Agro-ecosystem
• Vision: Agro-ecosystem is to sustain a green cover on the land
throughout the year, increasing food and fodder production
sustainably.
• Integration: It integrates trees into crop and livestock
production systems at the farm level and landscape scales.
• Approach: It is an ecologically sound, knowledge intensive
approach to agricultural production that helps people to address
some of the most challenging food production issues that we
currently face.
• Benefits:Implementing it on a broad scale will be a major
benefit to us both now and in the future

12. Evergreen Agro-ecosystems Concept
• Cultivation of crops with different duration to
keep green cover even during the harvesting
stage of one crop;
• Cultivation of crops leaving zero fallow period of
the land;
• Farming models, which combine seasonal, semi-
perennial and perennial crops ensuring the green
cover around the year;
• Green manure plants such as gliricidia, adathoda,
erithrina, thespesia etc. are grown as hedges with
strict frequency of pruning;
• Shade management is adopted to minimize light
competition and to maintain the crop land with
evergreen situation; and
• Live fence is maintained with plants to create a
stratification enabling to act as wind barrier as
well as favourable micro-climate in the crop

13. Benefits of Evergreen Agro-ecosystem
• Year round soil cover protection and increased soil organic
matter
• Improved plant nutrition via nitrogen fixation nutrient cycling
• Ecologically sound control of insect pests and weeds
• Enhanced soil structure and soil water recharge
• Increased food production
• Increased production of non-food products such as oil, fodder,
fuel and medicines
• Increased landscape carbon sequestration
• Conservation and enhancement of biodiversity

14. Recommended trees and creepers for live fence:
Trees: Gliricidia (Gliricedia sepium), Kathuru murunga (Sesbania
grandiflora), Drumstick (Moringa oleifera), Woodapple (Limonia acidissima),
Pawatta (Adhatoda vasica), Gansooriya (Thespesia populnea), Erabadu
(Erythrina variegate), Teak (Tectona grandis), Beli (Aegle marmelos), Neem
(Azadirachta indica)
Creepers: Aguna (Dregea volubilis), Winged bean (Psophocarpus
tetragonolobus), Halmessan dambala (Lablab purpureus), Passion fruit
(Passiflora edulis), Sponge guord or Niyan wetakolu (Luffa cylindrical)

15. Recommended Creepers for the live fence:
1 2 3
4 5
1. Wattakaka volubilis, 2. Psophocarpus tetragonolobus, 3. Dolichos purpureus L.
4. Passiflora edulis 5. Luffa aegyptiaca

16. Importance of live fencing:
• It makes protection from cattle, wild animals and thieves
• Legume trees planted along the fence provide large amount of green
manure
• The tree belt of the fence acts as a wind barrier
• Fence trees such as drumstick (murunga), Kathurumurunga
(Sesbania grandiflora) etc. provide nutritional vegetables
• Some fence trees can provide fuel wood, timber and fencing poles
• Fence trees such as Neem, Adathoda vasica etc. provide medicine
• Fence environment is favourable for some predators
• Many vegetable plants such as winged bean, bean, bitter gourd,
ribbed gourd, snake gourd, yard long bean etc. can be supported
without any trellis
• The live fence increases the bio-diversity
• Contributes to C sequestration

17. Grow pest repellant plants within the farm
Sera Citronella Turmeric
(Cymbopogon citratus) (Cymbopogon nardus) (Curcuma longa)
Ginger Araththa
(Zingiber officinale) (Alpina calcarata)

18. An example for ‘evergreen agro ecosystem’ practice’
suitable for upland and paddy lands

19. Nutrient composition of manure plants
Plant name Scientific term N % P % K %
Gliricidia Gliricidia sepium 4.6 0.2 1.45-2.95
Wild
sunflower
Helianthus annuus 4.7 0.4 2.15-4.20
Citronella Cymbopogon nardus 0.77 0.40 1.08
Adathoda Adathoda vasica 5.04 0.13 3.00-4.50
Erythrina Erythrina variegata 5.21 0.32 0.92-2.88
Keppetiya Croton laccifer 3.5 0.2 1.25-1.85
Thespesia Thespesia populnea 3.4 0.3 2.3
Water
hyacinth
Eichhornia crassipes 2.56 1.7 1.57-2.58
Azolla Azolla filiculoides 4.5 0.9 2.00-4.50

20. Food – Forest Garden
• The purpose of a food forest is to foster a sustainable
environment in which humans can live in harmony with nature,
with sufficient food, shelter, and other resources necessary to
thrive. It aims to create a diverse ecosystem that acts as a
favorable habitat for native plants and animal species.

21. Food – Forest Garden
• Characteristics
–Diversity of crops
–Forest effect
–Multi layer architecture
–Shade management
–Nutrient recycling
–Moisture sharing
–Micro-climate
–Habitats
–Pest control
–Livestock integration
–Aesthetic beauty

22. Large
canopy
Medium
canopy
Low
canopy
Ground layer
Creepers
Ground cover
Roots and
tubers
Layers of Food – Forest Garden

23. Large
canopy
Medium
canopy
Low
canopy
Ground layer
Creepers
Ground cover
Roots and
tubers
Layers of Food – Forest Garden
Beli, Wood apple, Neem,
Mango, Coconut
Papaya, Drumstick, Kathuru,
Guava, Pomegranate, Katu
anoda
Anguna, Wingedbean, Passion fruits,
Ginger, turmeric,
vegetables
Gotukola, Mukunuwenna,
Potato, Sweet potato, carrot

24. Targets for Carbon Stock Improvement in Home Gardens
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
35000
2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050 2055
C
Million
MT
Year

26. Agricultural GHG Reduction Targets

27. Summary (graph) with C Seq
Agricultural GHG Reduction Targets