1. Climate Smart
Agriculture
Implications for Feed the Future
A Framework
Moffatt K. Ngugi
Climate Change, NRM & Ag Program Analyst
Bureau for Food Security (CSI)
1300 Pennsylvania Ave 2.10.40, NW, Washington DC 20523
TEL: 202.712.0476 | mngugi@usaid.gov
3. USAID supports and advances best practices in agriculture and rural
development.
2010: Feed the Future Guide ~ climate change and environment crosscutting
themes, guidance on adaptation and resilience.
Experience and new policy directives ~ consider mitigation opportunities to
advance climate-smart approaches strengthening adaptation and resilience
USAID legacy in Agriculture and food
security
4. The intersection of climate change
and agriculture
• Climate change poses major risks
– erratic temperatures, precipitation changes,
rising sea levels and the increase in frequency
and severity of extreme weather events.
• Small-holder farmers, pastoralists and
fishers especially vulnerable as their
production systems often lack the
resources to manage an effective response
to climate threats.
Image from http://bit.ly/1BhCdBb
5. Development Policy Context for CSA
• September 23, 2014 President Obama issued Executive Order
#13677 on Climate-Resilient International Development at
the UN Secretary-General’s “Climate Summit”
• USG joined many other nations and organizations in launching
the Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture
6. A working definition of CSA
Sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and
incomes;
Adapting and building resilience to climate change;
and
Reducing and/or removing greenhouse gas
emissions, where appropriate (the FAO definition
uses possible).
Image courtesy of FAO
7. CSA Aspirational principles
• Holistic approach: CSA is not a practice(s), dynamically considers challenges that
arise at the intersection of climate change and agriculture
• Intentionality: thoughtfulness of coping strategies (adaptation) and, where
appropriate, how activities will impact climate change (mitigation)
• Multiple benefits: integrate options to maximize synergies and reduce tradeoffs &
achieve multiple benefits.
• Context specific: specific to the relevant geography and climate change impacts as
well as socio-economic, political, cultural, and environmental factors.
• Long-term perspective: acknowledges and addresses short term needs while
encouraging a long-term optic of future climate change impacts/uncertainties.
Embeds agility to incorporate and act on new information
8. Programmatic and
implementation implication
1.Sound climate data and science.
2.Development of climate smart technologies
and innovations
3.Strengthen human and institutional capacity.
4.Strengthen the enabling environment.
5.Partnerships for Impact.
9. Challenges & opportunities
Use M&E systems within the Agency:
Consultation across USAID: Missions,
Regional Bureaus, Pillar Bureaus…
Leveraging expertise: CCAFS, FAO, WB…
Incorporating CSA at policy and program
levels
Knowledge Management:
Integrating CSA in Research Programs:
Innovation Labs, HESN, HICD/BIFAD
Scaling agricultural technologies
Editor's Notes
Sound climate data and science. Country, Regional and Washington operating units will work together to improve our understanding of climate change impacts, and the risks that climate change pose on agro-ecosystems and food systems that are the focus of the agriculture and food security portfolio.
Development of climate smart technologies and innovations. USAID investments will help develop and increase the adoption of technologies and innovations that help achieve the climate smart agriculture objectives, and are acceptable to and benefit smallholder producers.
Strengthen human and institutional capacity. USAID will build on the capacity and knowledge of agricultural innovation systems and services that support producers and food systems to deliver climate smart agriculture practices and services.
Strengthen the enabling environment. Support and assist country governments and regional organizations to establish policies, investments and an enabling environment that facilitate climate-resilient development.
Partnerships for Impact. USAID will partner with the private sector, civil society and host governments to maximize the effectiveness of CSA investments, including the enhanced use of public-private alliances.
Monitoring Progress
In order to monitor progress in CSA, USAID will draw from current monitoring and evaluation systems and teams within the Agency, including that of Feed the Future (e.g., 4.5 & 3.8 Indicators) and the Global Climate Change Initiative indicators (4.8 series). This will build on work from the Food and Agricultural Organization and the CGIAR centers, which have been thought leaders in this realm. Precedents established through the Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture will be integrated, and specifically the work led by the Knowledge Action area.
Further developing of monitoring approaches is still needed. Therefore, a workshop to advance thinking by development partners on metrics is planned for early 2015 to engage leading experts in the Global Alliance on Climate Smart Agricultural community. This USAID-supported work stream will advance work on metrics, supporting Agency needs and contributing to U.S. leadership in CSA. The outputs of the process will be shared and can then be considered in the context of existing reporting systems (e.g., FTFMS) or other measures of progress on CSA. On an annual basis, BFS will lead an effort to prepare an Agency-wide update on CSA implementation to present to the Board on International Food and Agricultural Development (BIFAD) and for sharing with other interested partners (e.g., in the Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture).
In the wake of the launch of the Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture and the Executive Order, implementation of CSA will be supported and achieved through the development of CSA Action Plans. BFS will work with FTF Missions and partners to develop both regional and Mission-level plans for integrating CSA in USAID’s food security program. Those programs will be shared, and BFS welcomes other work streams sharing their plans as well, as a number of efforts are underway. Throughout the process, BFS will follow the following approaches, and believes similar approaches could be usefully considered in CSA programs outside of FTF as well. As a first step, BFS is developing a BFS CSA action plan to reflect the commitments to integrate CSA into the BFS and FTF portfolio.
Consultation across USAID: Within the Agency, sharing of Action Plans, other plans (training, workshops, etc.), and other documents should be a priority to fostering cross learning and collaboration through a range of on-going activities and discussions. In Washington, joint work planning and coordination of field support across offices and Bureaus will be fostered to ensure that we are being efficient and consistent in our engagement with Field Missions and partners. As a step in this direction, BFS will sponsor a survey of current Field Mission CSA efforts and plans. Findings will be shared with Missions and others across the Agency in field based CSA GLEEs that will take place in the fall of 2015.
Leveraging expertise: In order to benefit from the best and most relevant expertise, USAID will draw on global investments supporting research, analysis and strategic planning focused on the intersection of climate change with agriculture and food security. Taking advantage of modeled outcomes based on best available data should provide useful input to Missions and other USAID units in evaluating and developing programs with agricultural components.
USAID will continue to work with CCAFS to support implementation of CSA in missions and centrally. CCAFS will assist the agency in identifying best, most relevant practices around CSA (adaptation and mitigation), barriers to adoption and other guidance on implementing CSA in the context of food security and sustainable landscapes, but the outputs should have relevance for other investment streams as well. CCAFS will also assist USAID in characterizing mitigation potential and its acceptability to smallholder farmers. An inventory of carbon stocks in Africa’s drylands will also provide useful context as well as baseline information to inform decisions.
USAID will also engage a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including private companies, NGOs, and research and advocacy organizations to seek input on the best and most cost-effective ways to encourage private investment in CSA approaches. This may result in the co-design of specific programs to further the CSA agenda for particular value chains, deeper analytical work on private sector engagement for CSA, and guidance or tips for field missions and operating units seeking to maximize their impact by encouraging private investment in their CSA-related strategies and programs. USAID will explore potential for development of country profiles in collaboration with other partners in the Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture. These provide assessments drawing on extensive agricultural data, climate modeling and expert advice in presenting an analysis of major commodities and production systems’ vulnerability, as well as set of technology and resource management options. The options are graded according to a CSA index that incorporates analysis across productivity, adaptation and mitigation, showing the relative opportunities and tradeoffs with alternative choices.
Incorporating CSA at policy and program levels: USAID will support the incorporation of CSA in the development of national planning relating to food security, climate change, and other related objectives. USAID will also support integration of CSA analysis and programmatic inputs in support of Missions. In the context of Feed the Future, several focus country missions will be identified where initial analyses around inclusion can be carried out, providing both specific and more generalizable approaches to the broader agriculture and food security portfolio, regardless of specific resource stream. Building on these initial case studies, CSA will be explicitly integrated in the multi-year strategy planning processes that are slated for the next two years.
Knowledge Management: In collaboration with the World Bank and CCAFS, USAID will support the development of an updated Climate Smart Agriculture Handbook, which will provide practitioners and decision-makers with up to date information and resources for considering options and “climate smartness” of a wide range of agricultural technologies and practices.
USAID will also make full use of existing tools and information sharing approaches (for example the Agricultural Sector Council and Agri-links) to provide frequent updates and opportunities for information sharing across USAID staff and partners interested in CSA.
The above processes will be accompanied by focused programs of training courses and other opportunities for USAID staff managing agricultural programs.
Integrating CSA in Research Programs: Most research related to agriculture and food security (that is supported under Feed the Future) was developed with climate change adaptation as a key consideration, and many research programs explicitly target climate-linked challenges. Such investments have advanced to successful pilot projects and a number are now being scaled. As noted previously, many adaptation strategies involve mitigation outcomes, but the opportunity remains to consider other potential means of contributing to reducing GHG emissions in an absolute or relative sense.
Over the coming year, USAID will consult widely across its research partners to assess opportunities for emphasizing or better characterizing potential contributions associated with priorities related to food security and nutrition, for example biological nitrogen fixation, nitrogen use efficiency and integration of perennials in targeted production systems.
Scaling agricultural technologies: A number of technologies developed as a result of Feed the Future research investments offer substantial opportunities for generating a double-win around productivity and adaptation. In addition, a number offer important mitigation gains as well. Working across central and Mission investments, USAID will work with partners, both public and private, to promote adoption of technologies that can support CSA at scale.
