Year
2016
Related Science Domain
How smallholding farmers and local governments can together adapt to climate change
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Citation: Simelton E, Dam VB, Finlayson R, Lasco R. 2013. The Talking Toolkit. How smallholding farmers and local governments can together adapt to climate change. World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Ha Noi, Viet Nam.
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We have created this toolkit to help everyone better understand the exposure of farmers to climate change and variability, what impact it might have on them and food production, and how they can adapt. This collection of participatory exercises, which we call ‘tools’, are designed for those who facilitate discussions with farmers: development workers, researchers, agricultural organizations and government policy-makers. We assume that you are involved in a research or development project related to disaster and climate change and want to learn how to use proven research methods to achieve the project’s objectives. The tools have all been designed to help clear and practical communication about extreme weather events, climate change and variability and the ways we can start to adapt to our changing environment. They help survey the needs and build on the knowledge of farmers, establishing what is the ‘baseline’ or starting point for development and land-use plans. The Talking Toolkit has been supported by the CGIAR Research Programs on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry, and on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security.
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Download a PDF copy of the Talking Toolkit in English: Part 1 | Part 2
Download a PDF copy of the Talking Toolkit in Vietnamese: Part 1 | Part 2
Section 1: Preparatory Material
- Chapter 1 Background
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“Why this toolkit, who is for, and what it is about”.
- Chapter 2 What is it and who is it for?
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This chapter explains more about how the toolkit can be used and gives some tips for selecting survey sites.
- Chapter 3 Before you start
- This chapter brings up what preparations are needed before going out to meet the focus groups. How do you engage the villagers? What kinds of information should you look for?
- Chapter 4 What do climate-change terms mean?
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Do you find the climate change vocabulary difficult? This chapter tries to explain some of the common terms in a little bit less scientific way.
- Chapter 5 Example of a plan for using the tools with discussion groups
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This chapter takes you through the preparations and the roles and responsibilities of the team leader and facilitators
- Chapter 6 Running a focus-group discussion
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This chapter goes through how to start the focus group discussion, continue and wrap it up
- Chapter 7 The list of participants
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A table to fill in participants in the different groups
Section 2: The Tools
- Chapter 8 Tool 1: The Village Map
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This tool is used when there are no maps of the village available or if you want to redraw an existing one in order to be better understand the village.
The purpose of the Base Map tool is to produce a common point of reference for participants and the facilitator. For example, it can be used for pointing out the location of common natural hazards (see Tool 3 and Tool 4). This map will form the basis for risk mapping, the participatory scenarios and land-use plans.
- Chapter 9 Tool 2: Problem tree of factors that limit farming activities and livelihoods
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To understand the impact of climate, weather and other stresses on farmers’ livelihoods
- Chapter 10 Tool 3: Timeline of village history and hazards
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A village history that highlights key natural hazards and their impacts in order to better understand vulnerability to extreme events and climate change.
The Village History and Hazard Timeline provides the basic details needed for the completion of Tool 4 and Tool 5, which deal with how, where and when hazards and exposures affect a village. The Timeline is probably best carried out in tandem with Tool 4, Mapping Village Hazards. If you use only one village map, it's possible to split the work between two groups: one group can create the Timeline while the other group completes maps village hazard
- Chapter 11 Tool 4: Village hazards map
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Identification of areas of high exposure to natural hazards and impacts.
It presents the geography of exposure. Understanding the association between particular impacts and particular types of terrain and land use helps to identify key areas for action in future land-use planning.
- Chapter 12 Tool 5: List of exposure to extreme weather events
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Identification of exposures to extreme weather events and when they most commonly occur.
- Chapter 13 Tool 6: Calendar of climate and farming
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This tool creates a climate and farming calendar for 'normal', 'dry' and 'wet' years.
It provides a visualization of the range of variability in the current climate. Taking this into account, it also provides a flexible farming calendar.
The tool should help the transition of the focus-group discussions from extreme weather events and the resulting hazards towards longer-term climatic patterns and participants’ perceptions of climate change
- Chapter 14 Tool 7: Table of perceptions of changes in climate and weather patterns
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To understand how farmers perceive climatic changes and changes in weather patterns.read more
- Chapter 15 Tool 8: Table of strategies for coping and adaptation
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Documentation of the strategies that farmers use to reduce their vulnerability to extreme events.read more
- Chapter 16 Tool 9: List of losses: vulnerability and support mechanisms
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To clarify farmers' perceptions of weather and climate in relation to their choices of farming system.
- Chapter 17 Tool 10: Ranking suitable trees
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To create an inventory of locally appropriate farming systems so that farmers can choose to diversify with crops and products that are less vulnerable to extreme weather.
- Chapter 18 Tool 11: Participatory weather outlook
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To translate, design and communicate weather forecasts to farming communities.