“Simply ratcheting up the fertiliser and pesticide-led production methods of the 20th century is unlikely to address the challenge (of food security)”, said UNEP executive director Achim Steiner.

1. CLIMATE CHANGE: Farming Could Be
Friend or Foe
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Apr 2 (IPS) – Don’t forget about agriculture in the upcoming global
negotiations to combat climate change, experts warn. Not only is farming most at risk in an
increasingly variable and tempestuous climate, it is also a major emitter of greenhouse gases.
But with the right policies in place, agriculture could both continue to feed the world and play a
crucial role in solving the climate problem.
“Agriculture has been missing in the run-up talks to Copenhagen,” says Mark Rosegrant of the
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
The nations of the world will meet in Copenhagen this December to hammer out a new climate
treaty to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and establish a fund to help poorer
countries adapt. The complex process began in 2007 at the Bali talks, continued in Poznan,
Poland in 2008 and is ongoing this week in Bonn.
Agriculture accounts for about 15 percent of human emissions of GHGs, IFPRI says, although
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change puts it higher at 25 percent. Much of those
emissions come from developed countries that rely heavily on fossil fuels and fertilisers and raise
far more methane-emitting livestock.
With climate change the world is facing reduced yields of up to 20 percent in maize and rice by
the year 2050, Rosegrant told IPS. Much of that yield decline will be in the developing world,
mainly because sub-tropical and tropical regions are expected to be hit hardest by significant
changes in water availability and warmer temperatures.
Climate change could mean ever-rising food prices and therefore significant investments are
needed in agricultural research to help countries cope with the coming changes, he says: “We’re
trying to work out what the costs for adaptation in agriculture might be.”

2. IFPRI seeks sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty. It is one of 15 centres
supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).
Countries have been talking about creating an adaptation fund, but agriculture hasn’t been a part
of that yet. Agriculture is where forests were about 10 years ago – known to be important but
peripheral to the actual negotiations, Rosegrant says.
“It is going to be very tough to get anything like this (an adaptation fund). Who is going to pay?”
he noted.
And pay for what? There is major divide about the direction the next “green” revolution should
take.
The technology-oriented view sees a future involving genetically engineered seeds, fertilisers
and new technologies designed to cope with higher temperatures and drought conditions. The
eco-agricultural view sees a knowledge-intensive future applying skilled on-farm management to
create resilient, smaller-scale operations.
Scientists say climate change doesn’t just mean hotter or drier, it means far more variable
weather in the future, says Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, senior scientist at the Pesticide Action
Network, an environmental NGO in San Francisco.
“Future conditions will not be like the past. All bets are off. We need to focus on creating
adaptive, resilient farming systems,” Ishii-Eiteman said in an interview.
The technological approach of conventional agriculture in developed countries is not only fossil-
fuel intensive it is ill-suited to high levels of variability and volatility in weather, she said.
And a three-year assessment of global agriculture completed in 2008 reached similar
conclusions.
The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development
(IAASTD) tapped some 400 scientists and other specialists, including Ishii-Eiteman, to conduct
an evidence-based assessment of what direction agriculture should take to feed the world in an
era of climate change. The main conclusion: the dominant practice of industrial, large-scale
agriculture was unsustainable, mainly because of its dependence on cheap oil, negative impacts
on ecosystems and growing water scarcity.
The way forward for agriculture, according to the non-partisian IAASTD, are agro-ecosystems
that marry food production with ensuring water supplies remain clean, preserving biodiversity,
and improving the livelihoods of the poor.
“The ag assessment (IAASTD reports) should be used as the starting point,” for finding ways to
adapt and reduce GHGs, said former IAASTD Co-chair Hans Herren, president of the Arlington-
based Millennium Institute, a body that undertakes a variety of developmental activities around
the world.

3. “Agriculture could be a major sink for CO2,” Herren told IPS.
U.S. long-term studies have shown that an agro-ecosystem farming approach such as organic
farming used 28 to 32 percent fewer energy inputs, retained soil carbon and soil nitrogen better
when compared to conventional agriculture, and offered a higher profitability over conventional
systems.
Converting just 10,000 medium-sized farms in the U.S. to organic production would store
enough carbon in the soil that it would be like taking 1,174,400 cars off the road, according to
the Rodale Institute, a U.S. organic research centre.
Simply considering future energy costs makes it clear radical changes are needed in agriculture,
says Herren. Where research is truly needed is at the small landholder level, which provides food
and livelihood for more than half of the people on the planet.
Even in Africa organic or near-organic farming were not only practical, they outperformed
conventional methods, a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) study reported last
year. On 114 small-scale farms in 24 African countries, yields had more than doubled where
organic or near-organic practices had been used, the study found.
“Simply ratcheting up the fertiliser and pesticide-led production methods of the 20th century is
unlikely to address the challenge (of food security)”, said UNEP executive director Achim
Steiner.
Continuing along that path undermines “…the critical natural inputs and nature-based services
for agriculture such as healthy and productive soils, the water and nutrient recycling of forests,
and pollinators such as bees and bats,” Steiner said in statement about the study.
The IAASTD also concluded that government subsidies of conventional agriculture systems that
emit high levels of GHGs should be reevaluated. Research should be focused on water
harvesting and conservation technologies for small landholders along with policies that enhance
and protect agro-biodiversity and increase the diversification of agricultural systems to boost
resilience and adaptability.
Although there is strong European interest in this agro-ecosystem approach, the big global
agricultural organisations like the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), IFPRI, CGIAR and
others aren’t, asserts Herren. “They haven’t yet realised we need big changes in agriculture.”
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