About: Market driven approaches can provide an important route for strengthening resilience to climate change in agriculture. The project seeks to identify and assess climate-resilient high-value agricultural products that can be linked to local markets and/or global standards such as Geographical Indication (GI), Global Good Agricultural Practices (Global GAP), organic Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) and others. This approach goes beyond narrow, farm-specific interventions, involving a range of value chain actors, including consumers, based on shared interest in producing, processing, marketing and consuming high quality and safe products that be certified as more resilient and sustainable.

Towards this goal, ICEM is undertaking an integrated climate risk and market opportunity assessment for selected high-value agricultural products in the Koshi River Basin in Nepal and the Northern Tonle Sap region of Cambodia. Specific emphasis is placed on value chains with potential to access higher-value markets through certification and the adoption of international best practice. Other project activities includes gap analysis in terms of the value chain’s systemic, institutional and individual capacity, technology and information needs as well as barrier analysis in terms of information access, particularly in relation to consumer demands for safe and high-quality food.

Outputs will include:

These assessments will form the basis for potential investments in climate resilient value chains and allow for the exchange of knowledge and lessons learned between the basins, including towards ongoing Green Climate Fund (GCF) projects.

Image credit: Nepal In Data