Communicating Climate Change in the Rice Sector

Communicating Climate Change in the Rice Sector

File Size: 2.64 MB

Date: 05. Dec 2017

Rice agriculture is among the sectors most vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change.

Yet, it appears that little is written about how to communicate climate change among rice stakeholders, especially the resource-poor farmers. The necessity of communication has at some point been neglected as people would oftentimes just leave it to common sense. Over the years, as we get to know more about this phenomenon, we realize that it is highly complex, and along with it is the difficulty of effectively conveying educational messages across our stakeholders.


This book works at helping fill that gap. It is still a long shot from where it is supposed to be, but it is, nonetheless, a deliberate attempt to provide some guidance on how people involved in communicating climate change in the rice agriculture sector should tackle this important and highly complex, at times intellectual, discourse.

The book has two parts. The first is drawn from literature review on some key principles that delve on communicating climate change. While the principles are for climate change in general, the authors situated these principles in the agriculture context. The second part is drawn from the completed project of the authors co-funded by PhilRice and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security on integrating climate change in high school curriculum. The project was executed with and fully supported by the Department of Education.

This book is part of the project “Development of Agriculture TecVoc High Schools Offering Crops Production as Key Information Hubs on Climate ChangeReady Rice Production Technologies for Improved Agricultural Productivity” funded by the DA – Bureau of Agricultural Research.

The necessity of communication has at some point been neglected as people would oftentimes just leave it to common sense.

Agricultural extension workers, newbies in agricultural communication, and colleagues in the Department of Agriculture who are oftentimes tasked to talk about climate change in ordinary man’s language will benefit from this book.  While the context is on rice, which is understandable owing to the credentials and exposures of the authors and the host Institute, we encourage readers to see how the principles can fit into their respective contexts.

Read on, and do give us feedback so we can enrich this initial work on climate change communication in the rice sector, Philippine setting.

The book may be accessed at this link http://www.philrice.gov. ph/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/ Communicating-climate-change-in-the-rice-sector.pdf

(Source: Foreword of the book by SAILILA E. ABDULA Executive Director, PhilRice)