Sowing money
COP22 (22nd Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) was held from November´s 7th to 18th at Marrakesh, and the main goal was to discuss how to implement and regulate the Paris Agreement (COP21) proposals. This last year Climate action event was one of the most international success main UN meetings in several years. It has established unknown precedents on Climate Change negotiations, in which 177 parties finally signed, and compromise themselves to reach the objective of staying below 2°C (if possible 1.5°C) on the earth temperature.
From that date on, 114 parties has already ratified the agreement presenting their INDC (Internal nationally determined contribution). At least 80% of the submitted plans are on agriculture mitigation action, and 64% on agriculture adaptation action. Having considered these priorities from the parties, there is a “clear increasing recognition that climate action in agriculture is part of the solution” said the FAO General Director José Graziano da Silva, who also add that it is “an opportunity to tackle climate change WHILE fighting poverty, hunger and malnutrition”.
THE TRACKING PROGRESS FROM COP21
The focused initiatives on low emission agriculture such as ASAP, SAVE FOOD, LIFE BEEF CARBON and 4pour1000 not only demonstrate a big progress on agriculture awareness dimension at COP21, but also have already being taking place during this 2016.
- ASAP (Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme – Global largest financing source) has increase over 500.000 people that are more resilient to extreme climate weather events and 150.000 hectares managed with climate resilient practices.
- SAVE FOOD (food waste and loss) coordinates efforts to stop food from spoiling across the value chain from farm to fork. Food that goes bad or is wasted represent 8% of the GHG global emissions, but in this current year, the initiative has built capacity to reduce post-harvest loses in 5 countries and is working to ensure a productive, resilient and low emission food system setup.
- LIFE BEEF CARBON (reduce beef carbon footprint from cattle farms) is helping to increase the capacity of reducing GHG emissions and sequestring carbon at lifestock farms. Besides, is also working on demonstrative and pilot finds to benefit the environment and contribute to the economic and social sustainability.
- 4pour1000 (soils for food security and climate) is a multi-stakeholders platform that aims to increase carbon sequestration in soil´s fertility yield with agricultural and forestry sustainable practices. Nowadays intend to bring together funding while strengthening food security. It also support scientific researching programs, reinforce international cooperation and technology transfers, and work in pilot projects and initiative evaluation criteria’s.
LAUNCHED SOLUTIONS at COP22
Besides the four mention projects described, arriving on COP22 three new initiatives that highlight this potential in agricultural adaptation were presented. Morocco got advantage on the meeting to formally launch its Adaptation of African Agriculture initiative, but therefore, Global Framework on Water Scarcity and Milan Urban Food Policy Pact also reach main relevance. The three of them had already initiated before their presentation.
- AFRICAN ADAPTATION INITIATIVE Responds to the needs expressed by African countries. It is built around two major pillars: Advocacy to secure financing for projects of agricultural adaptation in African countries, and Promotion of innovative solutions to respond to Africa’s top priority needs. Besides promoting the financial capacity building, the AAA encourages the implementation of concrete projects such as: Improving Soil Management: Soil Fertility and Crop Fertilisation, Fruit Farming, Rangeland Management, Agroforestry; and Agro-Ecological Innovations and Carbon Sequestration. 2. Agricultural-Water Control and 3. Climate-Risk Management. It has already the active support of 28 African countries, several national and private sector entities, and it is estimated that with smart climate-sensitive agricultural practices, African annual agricultural production could increase from US $280 billion to $880 billion by 2030.
- GLOBAL FRAMEWORK ON WATER SCARCITY support countries in integrating climate action and sustainable water use into policies for their agricultural sectors and cross-sectoral dialogue, implement their national climate action plans, enhance the development of capacity in the climate-water-food-energy nexus, and shares knowledge and experiences with other countries. Several governments and investment-related organizations have recently joined this rapidly growing multi-stakeholder platform. The Global Framework on Water Scarcity came up to support the implementation of the agricultural water management component of the AAA initiative. Because basically, without water, there is no relevant agriculture production.
- MILAN URBAN FOOD POLICY PACT is a commitment of 132 mayors from across the world, calling for sustainable food systems in cities and adapting urban food systems against climate change. This initiative explores measures that would facilitate the transition to and invest in sustainable, climate-resilient and more productive agriculture. About one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year—approximately 1.3 billion tonnes—gets lost or wasted. Food losses and waste amounts to roughly $680 billion in industrialised countries and $310 billion in developing countries.
BOTH SIDES OF THE COIN
Smallscale farmers produce 80% of the food consumed in the developing world, yet the paradox is that this is where hunger and poverty is mostly found. Developing countries are the home of around half- billion smallholder farm families who produce food and other agricultural products. So is clearly shown that Agriculture (including forestry and fisheries) is the most threatened and affected sector by the industry, climate change, and inequality. Although at the same time is one of the huge responsible of world’s GHG emissions (producing over 20% to 21%) is not the only, but one if the biggest responsible on fighting against poverty and hunger.
Reducing gas emission, building agricultural resilience, and increasing productivity for farmers, are some ideas of this mitigation/adaptation plan. But, is only under large-scale projects such as re-designing the completely agricultural support policies and incentives, or changing actual agricultural practices to sustainable ones, that real and deep transformations can be carried out.
Investments on infrastructure such as extending irrigation systems to guarantee independent food production from weather and climatological fluctuations, funding and improved access to credit, insurance and other financial services for smallholder farmers, and progressing in science research and education are initiatives that cost much more than the mount of 20.000 to 30.000 million dollars that African Development Bank propose in their last inform.
Bringing FAO´s general director last words at COP22, I just can end this article saying that without action, agriculture will continue to be a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. Adopting climate-smart practices emissions can reduce while stepping up food production to feed the world’s growing population and stop hunger.
Then, let´s start sowing money.
Sources:
REPORTS:
ecdpm.org/cop22-agriculture-africa-and-action
(video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUgRKLTRRkw)
Food and agriculture organization of the United Nations reports
(http://www.fao.org/home/en/)
Adaptation of Africa Agriculture
http://www.aaainitiative.org/initiative
UN Climate Change Newsroom COP22
http://newsroom.unfccc.int
Agencia Europea de Medio ambiente
http://www.eea.europa.eu/downloads/9952cbf12e2544c5bb3a4549a2f8c3c5/1468248918/la-agricultura-y-el-cambio-climatico.pdf
Newspaper ARTICLES:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/world-on-a-plate/2016/nov/19/smallscale-farmers-need-the-spotlight-now-africa-food-prize-winner-kanayo-nwanze-speaks-out-at-cop22
http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/10/15/planeta_futuro/1476527682_057265.html
http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/11/16/planeta_futuro/1479328266_041681.html
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01 Dec 2016
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jpezzutti
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