Global efforts to protect 500 million farmers from climate change while increasing agricultural productivity and reducing carbon emissions were strengthened at today’s Climate Summit, with commitments pledged by dozens of countries, companies and organizations. This initiative is highly relevant to Malawi.
More than 20 Governments, 30 organizations and companies announced they would join the newly launched Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture. The countries joining represent millions of farmers, at least a quarter of the world cereal production, 43 million undernourished people and 16 per cent of total agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.
The Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture Aims to Achieve:
- Sustainable and equitable increases in agricultural productivity and incomes
- Greater resilience of food systems and farming livelihoods
- Reduction and/or removal of greenhouse gas emissions associated with agriculture (including the relationship between agriculture and ecosystems), wherever possible.
- Improving people’s food and nutrition security to adjust agricultural practices, food systems and social policies so they account for climate change and the efficient use of natural resources.
Regional Efforts to Carry Out Climate-smart Agriculture include:
- The Africa Climate-Smart Agriculture Alliance to help about 25 million farming households practice climate-smart agriculture by 2025.
- A North-American Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance to be established in 2015 to help farmers, ranchers and foresters adapt to climate change, improve resiliency and ease the associated risks of the production process.
- Walmart, McDonald’s and Kellogg Company committed to increase the amount of food in their respective supply chains that are produced with climate-smart approaches that expand the use of sustainable agricultural practices and curb carbon emissions from agriculture.
- The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Bank announced that 100 per cent of their agricultural investment portfolios –about $11 billion–would be climate-smart by 2018.
- The World Food Programme expanded its R4 Rural Resilience Initiative to empower food insecure rural households in Malawi and Zambia.
- The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) will allocate $10.2 billion over the next 10 years to climate-smart agriculture research. Other organizations investing resources in research include the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR), the Global Research Alliance for Agriculture (GRA) on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases , the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC)/Virtual
- Fertilizer Research Center (VFRC), and several European organizations setting up the Climate-Smart Agriculture Booster.
- The Climate and Clean Air Coalition’s Agriculture Initiative to reduce levels of methane and black carbon (soot) emitted during livestock and manure management, paddy rice production, and open agricultural burning.
See the full UN announcement here
Source: http://newsroom.unfccc.int/action-to-adapt/un-climate-summit-agriculture/