World: Climate-smart agriculture

Shifting world agriculture to a 'climate-smart'border will not only help prevent next food security crises but holds the promise of sparking economic and agricultural renewal in rural areas where hunger and poverty are most prevalent, according to a new publication by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

On the one hand, the magnitude and scope of climate change's impacts on agricultural systems means that boosting rural communities' resilience and adaptive capacities is essential to safeguarding world food security, noted the FAO success stories on climate-smart agriculture, released Friday.

It said that rising temperatures and an increased frequency of extreme weather events will have direct and negative impacts on crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture productivity in the years approaching, as clearly indicated in the majority recent statement by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Vulnerable, farming-dependent populations in the developing world are particularly at risk.

But at the same time, the compelling need to transaction with the challenges posed by climate change offers an opportunity to transform the way food systems use natural resources, improve agriculture's sustainability and promote poverty reduction and economic increase, the publication adds.

Highlighting case studies in 'climate-smart agriculture' from around the globe, the FAO document shows that a lot of rural communities are by presently successfully making the transition to new forms of farming better suited to the rigours of a warmer world.

'A shift to climate-smart agriculture will not only help shield farmers from the adverse effects of climate change and offer a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but can as well improve farm yields and household incomes, leading to stronger, additional resilient communities,' said FAO Deputy Director-General Helena Semedo.

'We can no longer afford to separate the next of food security from that of natural resources, the environment and climate change - they are inextricably intertwined and our response must be as well,' she added.

The model of climate-smart agriculture that the FAO is promoting seeks to address three broad objectives:

Sustainably increase agricultural productivity and incomes; Help rural communities and farmers adapt to and become additional resilient to the effects of climate change and To reduce or remove agriculture's greenhouse gases emissions, at the same time as possible.

Exactly how farmers go about tackling these goals can change from place to place, depending on local circumstances.

According to the document, the FAO is collaborating with national and local partners around the globe to help them develop locally-tested solutions that work for them.

For example, in the highlands of Mount Kilimanjaro, the Organization has partnered with farmers to reboot an 800-year-old agroforestry system, known as Kihamba, which supports one of the highest rural people densities in Africa and provides livelihoods for an estimated one million people.

An agro-ecosystem similar to a virgin tropical mountain forest, Kihamba maximizes the use of limited land, provides a large variety of foods all year round and maintains groundwater health, part other environmental services.

Meanwhile, a project in China is giving yak herders new knowledge and tools to replace degraded grasslands, improving the efficiency and productivity of their herds while sequestering atmospheric carbon.

In the Andes of Peru, FAO is promoting the conservation of local varieties of maize, potatoes and quinoa, each bred over centuries to thrive in specific climates and altitude conditions.

Ensuring wide biodiversity of crops and animals will be critical in adapting agriculture to climate change.

Other case studies profiled in FAO success stories on climate-smart agriculture include: Work with Kenyan and Tanzanian farmers in on-the-ground field schools that has helped identify and develop resilient, climate-smart farming systems attuned to local conditions.
In Malawi, Vietnam and Zambia, assistance to policymakers in developing national policies aimed at promoting and supporting climate-smart agriculture, and in Nigeria, there are projects that introduced new fertilizer technologies while innovative approaches to land use management are rife in Uganda's Kagera River Basin.