103482 Climate-Smart Agriculture A Call to Action Climate-smart agriculture seeks to increase sustainable productivity, strengthen farmers’ resilience, reduce agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon sequestration. It strengthens food security and delivers environmental benefits. Climate-smart agriculture includes proven practical techniques — such as mulching, intercropping, conservation agriculture, crop rotation, integrated crop-livestock management, agroforestry, improved grazing, and improved water management — ­ and innovative practices such as better weather forecasting, more resilient food crops and risk insurance. B Foreword Feeding people in decades to come will require ingenuity and “To feed the continent’s innovation to produce more food on less land in more sustainable 900 million people, ways. Climate change will exacerbate already tight resource constraints by making weather more extreme and variable and by Africa needs its own decreasing average yields worldwide. Population growth, changing food security. This can diets and land and water scarcity are also long-term trends that only be achieved through threaten our shared vision of a more prosperous future in which a uniquely African well-fed people everywhere are able to achieve their full potential Green Revolution. It without damaging their environment. Already, these pressures are forcing farmers and researchers to reassess mainstream farming must be a revolution techniques and consider alternative approaches to securing food, that recognizes that including conservation agriculture, integrated crop-livestock smallholder farmers are management, intercropping and agroforestry. the key to increasing The good news is that there is no shortage of women and men production, promotes ready to take the last century’s agricultural advances into a new era change across the entire of opportunity. Collectively, we can tap into well-proven production agricultural system, and practices, information technology and scientific findings, to rapidly puts fairness and the scale up policies and practices that achieve the triple win of food environment at its heart” security, adaptation and mitigation. That goal is within reach if we build on our successes and create the right incentives for site- Kofi A. Annan, Chair of the specific sustainable land management practices around the world. Board of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA, 2010) Left: A girl stands among the sorghum crops protected by trees in Niger. Photo: Petterik Wiggers/Panos. 1 The Global Challenge Close to 1 billion people went hungry in While agriculture is the sector most vulnerable to 2010 according to the Food and Agriculture climate change, it is also a major cause, directly Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. In 2011, accounting for about 14 percent of greenhouse hunger plagued the Horn of Africa, hit by the gas emissions, or approximately 30 percent worst drought in 60 years. The future is daunting when considering land-use change, including too: food needs are projected to increase by 70 deforestation driven by agricultural expansion percent by 2050 when the global population for food, fiber and fuel (IPCC 2007). And yet, reaches 9 billion, while climate change is projected agriculture can be a part of the solution: helping to reduce global average yields. people to feed themselves and adapt to changing conditions while mitigating climate change. Climate change will affect agriculture through higher temperatures, greater crop water demand, more variable rainfall and extreme climate events such The Challenge in Africa as heat waves, floods and droughts. Marginal areas, where low yields and poverty go hand in hand, may Climate projections for Africa (IPCC 2007) include become even less-suited for agriculture as a result a likely average temperature increase of 1.5 to 4° of land degradation through deforestation, wind C in this century, higher than the global average. and water erosion, repetitive tillage and overgrazing. Assuming even moderate temperature rises, Many impact studies point to severe crop yield warming and drying could reduce crop yields by 10– reductions in the next decades without strong 20 percent by 2050 in Africa (Jones and Thornton, adaptation measures — particularly in Sub-Saharan 2009). This overall projection translates into much Africa and South Asia, where rural households more severe losses in certain places and does not are highly dependent on agriculture and farming account for extreme events: pests and diseases; systems are highly sensitive to temperature increases droughts, heat stress and floods. and volatile climate. One assessment, based on a pessimistic assumption about global warming, In Sub-Saharan Africa, 250 million people went estimates that by the 2080s world agricultural hungry in 2010 – almost a third of the population. productivity will decline by 3-16 percent. The loss in Hunger is particularly prevalent in arid and semi-arid Africa could be 17-28 percent (Cline 2007). lands, where soil quality has been decreasing for several decades. Chronically poor crop performance 2 and a high risk of crop failure in these Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Sector systems, combined with low levels of rural development, have acted 26% Energy Supply to dissuade farmers from investing 13% Transport in soil fertility improvements. From 1945 to 1990, soil nutrient removals 8% Residential and Commercial Buildings (without replenishment with fertilizers or manure) and other forms of soil 19% Industry degradation reduced agricultural 3% Waste and Wastewater productivity in Africa by an estimated 17% Forestry / Land-Use Change 25 percent (UNEP 1990). 14% Agriculture Increasing organic matter in soils in cropping systems will be critical to retain water, increase yields and reduce risks in rainfed agriculture while sequestering carbon. The Emissions in the Agriculture Sector Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration estimates 38% N20 from that over 400 million hectares of Soil Management degraded forest landscapes in Africa 32% CH4 from offer opportunities for restoring Enteric Fermentation or enhancing the functionality of 12% Biomass Burning “mosaic” landscapes that mix forest, agriculture and other land uses. A 11% Rice Production range of well-established restoration 7% Manure Management options can improve human livelihoods, repair ecosystems and increase the resilience of both people and landscapes to climate change. Source: IPCC 2007; Smith et al. 2007. 3 How Climate-Smart Agriculture Can Help In countries where the economy is heavily based on To avoid solving a problem while exacerbating agriculture, development of the agricultural sector another, policy leaders should take an integrated is the most efficient poverty reduction measure. approach to food security, poverty and climate Yet agricultural expansion for food production change. and economic development which comes at the expense of soil, water, biodiversity or forests, These approaches include: conflicts with other global and national goals. • Integrated planning of land, agriculture, forests, For example, forest loss undermines efforts to fisheries and water at local, watershed and regional reduce emissions from deforestation and forest scales, to ensure synergies are properly captured. degradation and has negative repercussions on • Promoting activities that increase carbon storage, livelihoods and sustainable agriculture because combine animal husbandry and trees with food of the many ways in which trees produce goods production, and are geared towards improving soil (fruits, energy, fodder, timber), mitigate poverty fertility. in times of stress, and provide vital ecosystem • Reducing a variety of emissions from agriculture services (whether by regulating water, housing such as nitrous oxygen from fertilizer application, pollinating bats and bees, or maintaining soil fertility livestock emissions and methane from rice and erosion control). The loss of tree cover also cultivation. increases people’s exposure to violent weather, • Exploring carbon finance as a “lever” to promote depletes biodiversity and alters micro climates. sustainable agricultural practices that have many other direct benefits for smallholder farmers and the environment. 4 • Diversifying income sources and genetic traits of crops to help farmers hedge against an uncertain climate. • Developing sound risk insurance and risk management strategies as well as resilience building strategies including safety nets that reach the poorest farmers. • Adaptive management that disseminates timely climate Sustainable information to farmers and intensification seeks monitors the local outcomes to increase yield per of different actions, builds on unit of land to meet the traditional knowledge of today’s needs without farmers, and tailors techniques exceeding current to shifting climatic conditions resources or reducing the resources needed without harming ecosystems. for the future. Carbon sequestration is the process by which atmospheric carbon dioxide is taken up by plants through photosynthesis and stored as carbon in Right: Woman with a seedling, part of biomass and soils. an NGO-funded reforestation project in Malawi. Photo: Mikkel Ostergaard/Panos. 5 Climate-Smart Agriculture in Action Country Examples 6 Agricultural Carbon for Smallholder Farmers in Kenya Agriculture contributes more than 27 percent provinces in Kenya. It is implemented by the to Kenya’s GDP. Yet the sector is affected by Swedish Cooperative Center, ViAgroforestry, an widespread land degradation, due in part to rising NGO well-known in the Lake Victoria Basin for population density and continuous cultivation, participatory approaches leading to increased and is threatened by recurrent droughts and farm productivity and sustainable management floods. The Government is seeking to increase of natural resources. The project uses a simple agricultural productivity and encourage private activity-based carbon-accounting methodology sector investment in agricultural enterprises. that could become a model for similar soil carbon The Kenya Agriculture Carbon Project builds on projects elsewhere in Africa once it is approved. this approach but adds a carbon component. Improved agricultural practices have the potential Carbon sequestration activities include reduced to sequester about 60,000 tons of CO2-equivalents tillage, cover crops, residue management, per year, while simultaneously increasing crop mulching, composting, green manure, targeted yields, diversifying income sources and reducing application of fertilizers, reduced biomass burning the vulnerability of small farmers to climate and agroforestry. The project seeks to provide change. The BioCarbon Fund, a public-private technical support to about 60,000 farmers initiative administered by the World Bank, has aggregated in farmer groups, managing a total agreed to purchase carbon credits generated by of 45,000 hectares in the Nyanza and Western this project. Left: Terraced watersheds at Loess Plateau in China are a successful example of climate- smart agriculture. Photo: Erick Fernandes/ The World Bank. 7 Improving Hillside Productivity in Rwanda Rwanda’s Land Husbandry, Water Harvesting and fertilizer and crops are less likely to be washed Hillside Irrigation Project seeks to better manage downhill. The incorporation of fodder trees also rainfall so that it causes less hillside erosion, raises the possibility of adding livestock to the through terracing, improving the soil under farmers’ activities — although buying cows is still cultivation, managing water runoff and in some a challenge for many. This project received a $50 cases developing irrigation systems. It also seeks to million commitment from the Global Agriculture empower farmers by helping them develop farmer and Food Security Program (GAFSP) in June 2010 groups (rare in Rwanda) and gain access to credit. to scale up and replicate achievements in other In the Karongi district, where the project was first regions together with a range of development piloted and local farmers were employed to build partners. The Government’s vision is to scale up terraces, farmers reported an increase in yields and the program to over 100 watersheds countrywide. income: more than 65 percent of the first potato Such practices will create a more resilient harvest was sold in the market (after satisfying rural economy that is better able to withstand people’s own food needs) whereas only 10 percent population and climatic pressures. used to be sold in the past. Erosion control means 8 Natural Regeneration of Agroforestry Systems in Niger In Niger, a Sahelian country with highly variable farmers a freer hand and stronger incentive to rainfall, 84 percent of the population depends grow trees. After more than two decades, the on land-based activities for survival and half the results have been phenomenal, with over 5 million population suffers periodically from food insecurity hectares of rejuvenated “parklands,” an indigenous (witness the famine associated with the 2009- agroforestry system, benefitting 4.5 million people. 2010 drought). Given the key role of agriculture The practice mainly involved the selection and and the impact of climate on development and protection of tree species that were regenerating human welfare, the Government is actively seeking naturally from seed or roots in the soil. A range of to intensify agriculture on the most productive species, including the signature species Faidherbia lands, and improve land and water management albida, now provide improved soil fertility, to address soil fertility, erosion and run-off issues. fodder, wood and fuel, and a variety of fruits and Niger is also home to a tree expansion program foods, thereby diversifying farmers’ incomes and that has spread organically from village to village providing alternatives to famine in case of drought. and farmer to farmer and resulted in a major Benefits associated with increased tree cover have transformation of landscapes, especially in the increased sorghum yields by 20-85 percent and Maradi and Zinder regions. Rules regulating the millet yields by 15-50 percent in participating areas. use of trees on farms were revised in 1993, giving 9 Greening Ethiopia The over-exploitation of forest resources in Ethiopia been reforested using the Farmer-Managed Natural has left less than 3 percent of the country’s native Forest Regeneration technique, which encourages forests untouched. In Humbo, a small town nestled new growth from tree stumps previously felled but against the rocky slopes of Ethiopia’s Great Rift still living. The regeneration project has resulted in Valley, deforestation threatens groundwater increased production of wood and tree products, reserves that provide 65,000 people with potable such as honey and fruit, which contribute to water, and has caused severe erosion resulting in household budgets. Improved land management floods and in some cases deadly mudslides. Climate has also stimulated grass growth, providing change is likely to compound Humbo’s vulnerability fodder for livestock that can be cut and sold as to natural disasters and consequent poverty. With an additional source of income. Furthermore, the a population that depends heavily on agriculture regeneration of the native forest is expected to for its livelihoods, increasing droughts and floods provide an important habitat for many local species will create poverty traps for many households, and reduce soil erosion and flooding. The protected thwarting efforts to build up assets and invest in a areas of forest now act as a ‘carbon sink,’ absorbing better future. Under the Humbo Assisted Natural and storing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere Regeneration Project, developed by World Vision to help mitigate climate change. The project is and the World Bank, seven forest cooperatives were the first large-scale forestry project in Africa to established on the Humbo Mountain to sustainably be registered with the United Nations Framework manage and reforest the surrounding land. More Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). than 90 percent of the Humbo project area has Right: Farmland north of Lalibela in Ethiopia. Photo: Sven Torfinn/Panos. 10 11 Linking Weather Risk Management with Social Protection in Ethiopia Extreme weather and natural disasters such Government of Ethiopia with support from the as drought and floods can have a devastating World Food Programme and the World Bank has impact on food security as well as the social and developed a program called LEAP (Livelihoods - economic development of poor rural households. Early Assessment - Protection) which combines Climate change threatens to increase both the early assessment, early warning, contingency frequency and the intensity of these events. By planning and capacity building with contingent combining different risk management approaches, finance and a software platform that provides including early warning, weather index insurance, an estimate of the funding needs in the event contingency planning, contingent financing, of a weather shock. The software uses ground and social protection, it is possible to shift from and satellite rainfall data to calculate weather- managing disasters to managing risks in a more based indices for the whole of Ethiopia (even cost-effective manner. where there are no weather stations). The agro- meteorological information is integrated with Ethiopia has been able to improve the financial livelihoods and vulnerability data at local and sustainability and effectiveness of its Productive regional levels. These indices are used to trigger Safety Net Program (PSNP) by taking into contingent finance to scale up the PSNP, enabling account weather risk. The program’s core earlier responses that protect livelihoods and target group are the poorest people who face reduce the need for more costly emergency ongoing food insecurity whatever the weather. assistance. LEAP is currently being refined to However the ranks of hungry people needing integrate a flood index and a climate change and emergency assistance can swell by some 5 million seasonal forecast component. people when a drought occurs in Ethiopia. The 12 Conservation Farming in Zambia Conservation farming is a package of agronomic recently added a tree component — the planting practices that have been promoted in Zambia of Faidherbia albida — to provide mulch and by a coalition of stakeholders from Government, nutrients. These practices have been found to be donors and the private sector, since the mid- highly profitable and not only because of their 1990s. The system is comprised of dry-season impact on soil health. By eliminating the need for land preparation using minimum tillage methods, laborious land preparation, farmers adopting the utilizing fixed planting stations (small shallow system have been better able to plant close to the basins); retention of crop residue from the prior onset of the rains. That alone has had a significant harvest in the field or use of other mulches/ impact on yields which have doubled for maize ground covers; and rotation of crops in the field. and increased by 60 percent for cotton using Over 180,000 farmers used this system at the conservation farming, compared to conventional end of 2010, and this figure was projected to plowing systems. The program has thus been able rise to 250,000 farmers by 2011 — representing to achieve the triple win of enhanced productivity, some 30 percent of the population of small-scale resilience and carbon sequestration. farmers in Zambia. The scaling up program has 13 Restoring Vietnam’s Mangrove Buffer Vietnam is one of the countries most exposed practices through a combination of resettlement to climate change; floods, storms, typhoons, activities, extension services, vocational training, and longer-term sea level rise pose risks to low- and credit and social support. The project also lying coastal areas, including the agricultural introduced policy and contractual measures that heartland of the Mekong Delta. The rapid decline give local communities incentives to protect of Vietnam’s mangrove forests has had a serious the coast’s growing mudflats and biodiversity. impact on the productivity of coastal fisheries As a result, pressure on coastal mangrove and the rural economy of the Southern Mekong ecosystems has been reduced, erosion has Delta. Mangrove forests act as breeding grounds declined and livelihoods have improved for for aquatic organisms, a cleansing system for coastal communities who have witnessed a sediments and nutrients in estuaries, and provide resurgence of aquatic resources such as crabs buffer zones against typhoons and floods. The and clams. Combined with other forestry activities Coastal Wetlands Protection and Development implemented by the Government of Vietnam in Project (1999-2007) adopted a comprehensive, the project area, more than 95 percent of barren long-term approach to the protection of coastal areas in the full protected zones have now been wetlands in four Mekong provinces. In addition reforested. Experience gained in planting trees to planting trees to fight erosion and defining full in challenging environments should be especially protection and buffer zones, the project sought valuable at a time when climate change puts to tackle some of the causes of environmental coastal communities at greater risk of natural degradation. It worked to improve incomes in catastrophes. adjoining communities to reduce destructive Right: Farmer with mangrove seedling in Vietnam. Photo: Jim Holmes/Panos. 14 15 Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture in India Andhra Pradesh is one of India’s major producers conservation furrows, trenches and farm ponds of rice, cotton, groundnuts and lentils. Most farmers to increase water for crops. Together with inter- in the state practice conventional, input-intensive cropping, multi-cropping, improved planting farming that relies on the periodic purchase of techniques, and increased on-farm water capture, high-yielding seed and the continual application of non-pesticide management makes CMSA farms chemical pesticides and fertilizers that account for more resilient to climate shocks. CMSA farmers as much as 35 percent of their cultivation costs and are growing more food, and a wider variety of generate tremendous pressure to borrow to pay food both for themselves and for sale to local for inputs. As a result of debt and uncertain profit markets, with positive effects on nutrition and potential, agricultural growth began to stagnate food security. By 2009-10, CMSA and non- in the 1990s. By the early 2000s, farming was no pesticide management was being implemented on longer a sustainable livelihood. Many farmers used 715,314 hectares and benefiting 738,000 farmers. their land as collateral and became tenant farmers Farmers have lowered the cost of cultivation or wage laborers on their own land. In 2005, 82 while maintaining yields, which means more percent of farm households in the state were in profit to invest in livelihood assets. Many have debt — the highest rate in India. reclaimed their mortgaged land. To manage labor costs, farmers work together to manage pests In 2005-06, building on successful efforts by and increase soil fertility. New local enterprises NGOs like the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, producing bio-pesticides and leasing farm the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty implements are emerging to meet growing needs. began supporting a program of non-pesticide Moreover, pesticide-free groundwater and soil agricultural management on just 162 hectares have also had a positive impact on community benefiting 350 farmers. Encouraging results led health and biodiversity. The Government of to a scale up of community managed sustainable Andhra Pradesh recently announced its intention agriculture (CMSA) with seed networks, to scale up this approach to make the state soil management practices and ultimately entirely free of chemical pesticides. 16 Using Weather Index Insurance to Improve Relief Efforts in the Event of Drought in Mexico Although at initial stages, weather index insurance households timely and assured access to funds programs are taking off as a more promising when they need it most. Vulnerable smallholder way to adapt to extreme weather conditions farmers are identified in advance and payments than selling assets, digging wells which drain can be made as soon as a predetermined water tables, or queuing up for food aid after threshold is crossed (using a weather-based index disaster strikes. Since 2002-03, Mexico has used which correlates local rainfall with crop yields) an insurance scheme managed by a government- rather than waiting for relief agencies to raise owned insurer (AGROASEMEX) to improve public funds for a given catastrophe (when farmers may relief efforts in the event of drought. Federal have already sold productive assets). This leaves and state governments purchase Catastrophic farmers better equipped to recover when the Agricultural Insurance to manage the risk they weather improves. In 2010, the program covered face from making payments to rural households potentially 3.2 million low-income farmers in 30 affected by drought. Part of the appeal of the out of 33 states in Mexico. The availability of program is to put relief funding on a more reliable weather databases and weather stations predictable footing and to transfer part of the in the field is one of several factors constraining risk to the international reinsurance market. the spread of this model. More compelling still is the ability to provide 17 Erosion Control in China Addressing the environmental footprint of basic requirements. The project encouraged natural agriculture is a major challenge for China. The regeneration of grasslands, tree and shrub cover agricultural sector accounts for 15 percent of on previously cultivated slope-lands. Replanting national greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from and bans on grazing allowed the perennial livestock and paddy rice, and has become the vegetation cover to increase from 17 to 34 percent largest source of water contamination. In the last between 1999 and 2004, sustaining soil fertility two decades, China has spearheaded a major and enhancing carbon sequestration. Together reforestation program to protect its watersheds. with terracing, these measures not only increased It has also successfully implemented one of the average yields, but also significantly lowered their world’s largest erosion control programs which variability. Agricultural production has changed has returned the devastated Loess Plateau to from generating a narrow range of food and low- sustainable agricultural production, improving the value grain commodities to high-value products. As livelihoods of 2.5 million people and securing food a result, the evolution of farm and family incomes supplies in an area where food was sometimes has shown a steady increase. The program has scarce in the past. Thanks to the program, effectively addressed the triple win of climate- grain production increased from about 1 mt per smart agriculture. It is estimated that as many as 20 household, which left a food gap of approximately million people have benefited from the replication 2 to 3 months a year, to 1.3 mt and more, covering of the Loess Plateau approach throughout China. 18 The Three Rivers in China – Sustainable Grazing and Carbon Credits The Three Rivers Project, situated in Qinghai through improved productivity and product province, northwest China, is a pilot project using marketing. Incentive payments will encourage carbon financing to facilitate grassland restoration herders to overcome risk barriers. Overall, after and increase livestock productivity. Potential the first decade of the project, households will benefits are expected to be higher productivity and have fewer but more productive livestock, and be profitability of herding operations and thus poverty engaged in more profitable value chains. alleviation and enhanced food security, greater resilience to droughts from improved vegetation After 10 years, it will be possible to increase herd cover and soils, and emission reductions through size on the restored grasslands while continuing soil carbon sequestration and reduced livestock with sustainable grazing management. Increased methane emissions. availability of forage will enable more productive livestock and higher incomes, providing an incentive Carbon finance from a voluntary scheme will for long-term sustainable land management. It be used to compensate costs and foregone is hoped that this model can break the vicious income during a transition period and to increase cycle of overstocking and land degradation and productivity. The pilot, jointly supported by the demonstrate sustainable management options, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United while generating a reduction of approximately Nations (FAO), the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture 500,000 tons of CO2–equivalent, over 10 years. and Qinghai Province Government, offers a It also aims to address some of the key barriers combination of restoration of degraded grasslands to smallholder access to carbon finance, which and stocking-rate management in an incentive- include the lack of appropriate carbon accounting based system. In the first project years, tackling methodologies and cost-effective measuring, overstocking (currently at about 45 percent) will reporting, and verification. translate into income losses which will be mitigated 19 Cooking with Biogas in China Methane, which is released from animal manure, is from smoke and helps produce high-quality organic 22 times more damaging than carbon dioxide. By fertilizer. In addition, the project has resulted in turning human and animal waste into methane for better sanitary conditions in the home. lighting and cooking, a project of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Families, especially women, save 60 work days China’s Guangxi Province is reducing poverty and per year by not having to collect wood and tend also helping reduce methane’s more damaging cooking fires. This additional time is invested in global warming effects. raising pigs and producing crops. With more time to spend improving crops, farmers in Fada, a village in Each household involved in the project has built its the project area, increased tea production from 400 own plant to channel waste from domestic toilets to 2,500 kilograms a day over a five-year period. and nearby shelters for animals (usually pigs) into a Average income in the village has quadrupled to sealed tank where waste ferments and is naturally just over a dollar per day. This is significant in a converted into gas and compost. As a result of the country where the poverty line is 26 cents per project, living conditions and the environment have day. And as a result of the project, 56,600 tons of improved. Forests are protected, reducing GHG firewood can be saved in the project area every emissions from deforestation. A large amount of year, which is equivalent to the recovery of 7,470 straw, previously burned, is now put into biogas hectares of forest. tanks to ferment. This further reduces air pollution Right: Farmer with drought tolerant maize variety in Tanzania. Photo: Anne Wangalachi/CIMMYT. 20 Research Benefits: Drought Tolerant Maize Maize is life to more than 300 million of Africa’s most vulnerable people, and is a critical part of the fight against poverty in Africa. Maize is both an important source of home-produced food and an important cash crop for farmers. The open-pollinated modern maize varieties are particularly valuable for resource-poor farmers, as they do not have to buy fresh seed each season. In the early 1980s erratic rainfall and drought began to reduce crop production in much of Sub-Saharan Africa and the development of drought tolerant maize varieties became a priority for both scientists and farmers. Since then, the scientists of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) have been conducting extensive research in partnership with national research institutions to develop improved drought tolerant varieties that deliver higher and more stable yields despite variable rainfall, benefitting hundreds of thousands of people each year. It is estimated that in West and Central Africa alone improved maize varieties have lifted more than one million people out of poverty each year since the mid 1990s. 21 Silvopastoral Approaches in Costa Rica and Nicaragua After several years of intensive grazing in Costa of carbon while reducing methane production of Rica and Nicaragua, pastures were degraded, livestock under increased tree cover. In Costa Rica erosion was accelerating and livestock productivity and Nicaragua, the techniques ranged from planting was falling. To address these challenges a pilot trees, to natural pastures, to highly intensive fodder project introduced silvopastoral techniques to 265 shrub plantations. Sequestered carbon was paid for farms on 12,000 hectares between 2001 and 2007. at a rate of $2 per ton of CO2–equivalent. A payment scheme for environmental services — carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation Farmers had a very positive reaction to the — was introduced as an additional income stream initiative. Results showed a typical win-win situation: for livestock production. an annual sequestration of 1.5 mt of CO2–equivalent was accompanied with increases of 22 percent in Silvopastoral techniques are used to transform milk production, 38 percent in stocking rate and degraded lands with mono-cultures of one grass 60 percent in farm income. The methane emission species into more complex agroforestry systems per product kilogram decreased while biodiversity that may include forest fragments, live fences, (measured by the number of bird species and water riparian forests and trees dispersed in pastures. quality) increased. The project is currently being These techniques have been shown to enhance scaled up in Colombia through Global Environment biodiversity and sequester appreciable amounts Fund (GEF) and private sector funds. Right: Silvopastoral techniques are used at Reserva Natural El Hatico, familia Molina Durán, near Palmira, Colombia. Photo: Neil Palmer/CIAT. 22 23 Next steps • Early action is needed to identify and scale up best practice, to build capacity and experience and to help clarify future choices. • Considerable finance will be needed to rapidly implement proven programs and support poverty alleviation and food security goals in a changing climate. • COP 17 in Durban offers a unique opportunity for Africa to shape the global climate agenda and establish an agriculture work program that is informed by science and covers adaptation and mitigation. “Millions of hungry and starving individuals have their hopes vested in us. Despite our serious global challenges, we still have hope. We need your support to elevate agriculture to achieve global climate change goals and the triple win of enhanced agricultural productivity and incomes, climate resilience and carbon sequestration. It is vital to include agriculture, food security and land in the climate change negotiations.” Tina Joemat-Pettersson, Minister: Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, South Africa. Photo: Woman in southwestern Uganda. Credit: Neil Palmer/CIAT. 24 C This brochure on climate-smart agriculture was produced in partnership with: African Union: www.au.int CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS): www.ccafs.cgiar.org Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Republic of South Africa: www.nda.agric.za Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: www.fao.org International Fund for Agricultural Development: www.ifad.org Program on Forests: www.profor.info United Nations Environment Programme: www.unep.org World Bank: www.worldbank.org World Bank Institute: wbi.worldbank.org World Food Programme: www.wfp.org agriculture, forestry & fisheries Department: Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA Enabling poor rural people to overcome poverty Cover photo: Maize and other crops grow under Faidherbia albida trees in Tanzania. Agroforestry is the most effective method of sequestering carbon. Photo by World Agroforestry Centre.