*4.6. Future Projections*

Production levels in agriculture, fishery and livestock raising are projected to change due to climate change [39,83]. We therefore sought to project the impact of rice yield change on the state of poverty in Bangladesh. If rice is a commercial crop, a price hike due to any damage from climate change could increase Bangladeshi farmers' living standards. However, rice remains a subsistence crop among most Bangladeshi farmers; therefore, we assume that rice yield reduction will lead to a rice consumption reduction.

The effects of climate change on rice yields, as has been estimated and shown by International Food Policy Research Institute [37], are such that, without adaptation to climate change impacts, *aman* HYV and *boro* HYV rice yields will decline by 3.5% and 10.2%, respectively, in Bangladesh. According to the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) scenarios, if temperature changes by 4.0 ◦C, then 17% decline in overall rice will occur in Bangladesh [84].

According to this projection, we assumed that, due to climate change effects on *boro* HYV and *aman* HYV, rice yields will be reduced by 10% and 4%, respectively, as well as a 17% reduction in overall rice among the sample households. We applied log-normal distribution to project the poverty rate due to income reduction by yield loss on the effects of climate change.

Figure 10 shows the annual per-capita income (actual and projected) in US\$ of the sample households across Bangladesh. In general, one can see from this figure that the sample population density (i.e., probability density) mostly lies within the low annual per-capita income range, which is less than the poverty line. Additionally, the probability density of the low-income range increases in the projected income distribution when one considers rice yield loss due to climate change.

**Figure 10.** Annual per-capita income (US\$) distribution of Bangladesh (17% loss of rice).

From the decomposed variance share of income sources in Table 9, we found that agriculture was the main reason for income differences in Mymensingh and Rangpur. Now, we can examine the effects of climate change on rice production (10% and 17% losses) in these two regions by log-normal distribution.

We analyzed and found that constant reduction of rice yield (10% loss) by climate change in Bangladesh is not such a severe problem for farmers. Because the change in net per-capita income is very small, there is not a dramatic change of poverty rate. However, if unexpected extreme events, such as floods, flash floods, droughts and sea level rise, occur in specific areas of Bangladesh, they create a more vulnerable situation for the farmers' livelihood. In addition, the probability density of low-income range increases (Figures 11 and 12) in both Mymensingh and Rangpur districts, where rice income decreases due to climate change.

**Figure 11.** Annual per-capita income (US\$) distribution of Mymensingh (17% loss of rice).

**Figure 12.** Annual per-capita income (US\$) distribution of Rangpur (17% loss of rice).

We also applied the same analysis in Figures 10–12 to all of the regions and Table 12 shows the results of the poverty rate after income changes due to assumed yield losses of *aman* HYV, *boro* HYV rice and overall rice.


**Table 12.** Change in poverty rate following a loss of rice yield due to climate change.

B = Barisal, CH = Chittagong, CO = Comilla, D = Dhaka, K = Khulna, M = Mymensingh, RJ = Rajshahi, RN = Rangpur, S=SylhetandBD=Bangladesh.

 

The estimated results sugges<sup>t</sup> that rice yield loss would reduce the annual per-capita income of the sample farm households and increase the poverty rate in various regions across Bangladesh. It was found that the highest poverty rate increase (3.024%) would occur in Mymensingh, Rajshahi (3.715%) and Rangpur (2.381%). Rajshahi and Rangpur are in northwestern Bangladesh and are prone to drought; climate change would affect rice production specifically in the summer, when *boro* rice is being produced. Mymensingh is affected by floods, flash floods and heavy rainfall each year, owing to the effects of climate change on *aman* and *boro* harvests.

## Climate Change Impact Scenario

Extreme events, such as floods, droughts and changes in seasonal rainfall patterns, negatively impact crop yields in vulnerable areas [85–87]. In Bangladesh, the rural poverty rate would be exacerbated [88] as a result of the impacts of extreme events on the yield of rice crop and increases in food prices and the cost of living [89,90]. The impacts of climate change on poverty would be heterogeneous among countries [91]. Due to the impact of climate change, rice production would decrease and some rice exporting countries, such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, would benefit from global food price rises and reduced poverty, while Bangladesh would experience a net increase in poverty of approximately 15% by 2030 [89,91].

Climate change refers to changes in climate attributed directly as temperature, precipitation, CO2 concentrations and solar radiation or indirectly as river floods, flash floods and sea level rise that alter the composition of the global atmosphere, as well as to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods [33,50].
