Thailand is ranked as the eleventh country most affected by climate-related impacts from 1994–2013.
The climate change impact can be seen vividly in the fact that, from 1955-2014, the number of rain days in Thailand has significantly decreased by 0.99 days per decade while daily rainfall intensity has increased, and there has been an increase in minimum temperature by 1.45°C.
Thailand made several adaptation commitments in the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution submitted ahead of the 2015 Paris agreement. With a steady growth of urban population from 7.8 million people to 9.6 million between 2000 and 2010, cities play a vital role in reducing climate change impacts in Thailand.
ACCCRN is promoting urban climate resilience on a pilot scale in the cities of Chiang Rai and Hat Yai in Thailand. Urban agriculture is promoted in both cities in order to increase green spaces, improve the quality of life of low-income people, and strengthen food security and safety as a strategy of urban climate change resilience.
ACCCRN, in collaboration with Thailand Environment Institute (TEI), organized a workshop on Building Urban Agriculture Collaboration between Chiang Rai and Hat Yai in the first week of August 2016. This workshop was also a good opportunity for the ACCCRN Blog Competition winners to gain direct insight into the ongoing efforts in these two cities and brilliant entrepreneurial initiatives of several actors associated with this project.
The ACCCRN projects in these two cities show that meeting the global commitments made by Thailand in terms of climate change adaptation is possible only when local actors own them and implement them on ground. ACCCRN’s pilot projects pursue urban agriculture as a key strategy to strengthen urban resilience and adaptation to climate change.
The project recognizes urban agriculture as integral to urban economic and ecological system, placing urban residents as key stakeholders, using typical urban resources (like organic waste as compost and urban wastewater for irrigation). It can be seen that urban agriculture is helping participating households to gain additional Income, and secure their subsistence food needs.
This strategy is also creating positive impacts in meeting local food security and in improving the standard of living of urban poor by increasing their means of making a livelihood.
