The new Google Earth climate change map shows how the world would be affected by a global average temperature increase of 4°C (7°F) in a bid to rebuild public trust in climate science.

This is a simulation of possible, plausible impacts that are consistent with the science involved. The map illustrates rising water levels and reduced crop yields around the world, and also offers some adaptation options to the impacts.

Agricultural productivity is assessed as one of the most complex sectors to be affected by climate change, with agricultural yields expected to decrease for all major cereal crops in major regions of production, once the global average temperature increases beyond 3°C. Especially in low latitudes, maize and wheat yields could reduce by up to 40%, and soybean yield could decrease in all regions of production, including North and South America, southern and eastern Asia. The map also shows a possible decrease in rice yield of up to 30% in China, India, Bangladesh and India.

Subsequently, there would be a 10-20% increase in the number of those at risk of hunger, accounting for some hundreds of millions of people, the majority of who live in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia and Central America. Estimates increase the number of malnourished children in 2050 by 24 million.

The UK’s Foreign Office (FCO) and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) launched the map to counter the sustained scepticism over scientific research into anthropogenic global warming, and for the public to understand the risks of allowing unmitigated climate change.

The online map is available, for people who have Google Earth installed, at: http://www.fco.gov.uk/google-earth-4degrees.kml

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We are quite happy with the outcome although more could have been achieved, though what is particularly pleasing is the fact that the leaders have been able to commit to an accountability framework.

This framework, the Muskoka Accountability Report, is the first of its sort and is a clear sign that leaders are opening up their negotiations to the outside world so that no longer are commitments made behind closed doors.

Whilst it was revealed at Muskoka that only US$6.5 billion of the US$22 billion pledged at L’Aquila last year has actually been dispersed to date, Dr. Sibanda said that it was encouraging that leaders had promised to ensure the full amount would be dispersed by 2012.

Dr. Sibanda noted that the majority of the US$6.5 billion that has been delivered has gone towards financing the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP).

Globally we now accept that Africa has a plan, Africa is committed to a plan it wants to implement and there is now coherence, slowly, in financing initiatives that are Africa-led.

The broadcast also addressed the growing crisis in the Sahel, in particularly in Chad and Niger.  To tackle this challenge, Dr Sibanda proposed starting with agricultural policy.

How do we get Africa to have and realise its own green revolution? How do we get Africa to improve productivity? Unless we realise the potential productivity by having good quality seed, by having the right fertilizer to improve productivity, by looking after our natural resources, making sure our soils are fertile enough to boost productivity, we will always be chasing the food that we cannot produce and grow on our own.

Listen to the interview here:

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Agricultural Technologies for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in Developing Countries: Policy Options for Innovation and Technology Diffusion

This report highlights the technological and institutional innovations required to meet the challenges of food security, agricultural development and climate change adaptation and mitigation. Whilst new traits and varieties of crops are noted as important innovations, the paper puts equal emphasis on the need for relevant practice and technologies such as water management, post-harvest technologies, information services and forecasting, and farmer insurance.

The paper also explores the constraints to the development of innovations and their transfer and dissemination to farmers, and suggests ways to overcome such constraints. Those most significant barriers are named as poorly functioning input or output markets, weak local institutions and infrastructure, inadequate extension systems, and absent credit and insurance markets.

The authors propose six policy principles to aid farmers’ access to new technologies, which prioritise a globally-connected yet locally-relevant approach to climate change mitigation strategies.

Climate Change and China’s Agricultural Sector: An Overview of Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation

This paper examines the challenges facing China: economic development, eliminating poverty, ensuring long-term food security, adapting to climate change and mitigating the effects of greenhouse gas emissions. The report notes that Chinese farmers have been making progress in implementing adaptation strategies, which include changing cropping patterns, increasing investment in irrigation infrastructure, using water saving technologies and planting new crop varieties that are resistant to the effects of climate change.

The Chinese government have also been investing in important mitigation activities. The paper reports on a new technology that the government is promoting, that regulates fertilizer dosage according to soil type, to combat an overuse of fertilizer by many farmers. Additionally, the government is urging farmers to practice conservation tillage as a means to create carbon sinks.

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Food security is an immediate and future priority for all countries worldwide. Since the food crisis erupted in 2008, a large number of global and regional food security initiatives have been launched or strengthened in response. While these developments are welcome, improving policy and implementation coherence is essential to ensure programmes have the desired impacts.

As we move towards action on these food security policies, Farming First urges policymakers to:

1. promote a clear joint focus on a common goal for food security at the global level through policy and operational coherence
2. encourage increased transparency on how much of pledged funding has been committed and to what types of programmes
3. engage a wide range of stakeholders to ensure that efforts are coordinated, clear, collaborative and ultimately successful.

Returning farmers to the centre of policy decisions is fundamental to sustainable development. Governments, businesses, scientists and civil society groups must focus attention on the source of our food security. Women farmers should become specially targeted recipients because of their vital roles in the agricultural workforce,
household food procurement and preparation, and family unit support.

Productivity levels in most developing countries have to be raised exponentially while considering environmental sustainability. Policies encouraging investment in developing countries’ agricultural sectors should be supported.

Governments should invest in their agricultural sectors and devise long-term agricultural development strategies supporting the development of local agricultural markets and farmers’ ability to answer market demands.

Local production should also be stimulated by providing farmers with the technology, the knowledge and the adequate financial services they need.

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Ivo Mello – Confederacion de Asociaciones de Productores para una Agricultura Sustentable (CAAPAS)

From the late 80s to the early 90s, the farmers of Mercosul Countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) faced difficult economic conditions. As a result of external and internal factors, many governments in the region were unable to maintain agriculture subsidies, and farm economies were negatively impacted by high inflation levels.

Despite these difficulties, farmers in the Mercosul region have created innovative mechanisms to support production and the adoption of best practices. For example, adoption of no till has greatly increased in the region. No till allowed farmers to make savings while providing opportunities for good stewardship. As farmers improved their knowledge and practices, their experiences helped to feed back into industry, state research and advisory agencies to further improve the technique and scientific knowledge linked to no till. In order to bring the different actors together, no till farmers associations were created. They helped organize farmers and coordinate the private sector and state agencies to plan successful strategies.

In South Brazil, the case of “Friends of The Earth” clubs is also famous. In the early 90s there were many such clubs spread over the cropping regions, helping farmers liaise with other stakeholders and making agronomic information available to their members on how to adopt no till practices. The clubs played a key role in making no till accessible to farmers by breaking down the information and making a new practice understandable, resulting in improved profitability for farmers. During difficult economic times, farmers who had adopted no till through the clubs were able to better adapt.

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Michael Hermann – Crops for the Future

The need for agricultural research and development to concentrate resources on priorities is beyond dispute. However, the nearly exclusive focus on research and development efforts on staples has lead to an over-reliance on ever fewer food crops, with only 15 species providing 90% of the world’s food energy intake. The potential for the vast diversity of non-commodity crops to contribute to greater agricultural sustainability, more diversified and better nutrition as well as rural income remains largely unappreciated and unexplored.

Policies concerned with agriculture, conservation, seed systems and trade are generally unfavourable to the wider use of NUS (neglected and underutilized species). Yet some such species have seen in recent years increased demand from niche markets.  In several cases new product development, notably for convenience uses, has helped remove demand constraints previously limiting NUS-based market development, particularly in urban contexts. Much of this encouraging development has been driven by the private sector: small and big companies and notably entrepreneurial farmers. But support to NUS-based value chains from public sector actors has been sporadic and inconsistent.

Public-private-partnerships are at their best where governments and donors focus their attention on creating enabling regulatory frameworks, and research institutions provide the scientific underpinnings of good policy making. Regulatory frameworks that facilitate the functioning of NUS value chains and generate benefits for the poor relate inter alia to effective ex situ conservation, strengthened informal seed systems, authoritative food safety assessments, improved trade policies and the IPR protection of farmer products. More research is needed to substantiate product properties, as are efforts to enhance the public awareness of the benefits of greater use of neglected agricultural biodiversity and thus stimulate the demand for its products.

- Crops for the Future is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of neglected and underutilised plant species whose activities involve increasing the knowledge base for underutilised crops, identifying and advocating necessary policy changes to promote their use and fostering capacity building.

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Operation Pollinator is a 5-year EUR 1 million program, launched by Syngenta in July 2009, to provide essential habitat and food sources for pollinating insects across Europe. The project aims to boost the numbers of pollinating insects in order to protect biodiversity and improve crop yields and crop quality.

The programme is based on the success of Operation Bumblebee in the UK where, within three years, the project increased bee populations up to 600%, increased butterfly population 12-fold, increased other insects by more than 10-fold and helped contribute to the regeneration of rare species.

Operation Pollinator is currently being run in France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the UK.  The project uses scientific research findings to develop site-specific ways of creating habitats alongside the working farming environment. Additionally, careful site planning and management can significantly reduce soil erosion and help to protect valuable water resources from soil and nutrient degradation.

This initiative shows how farmers have an important role to play in maintaining natural habitats and other ecosystem services to protect biodiversity.

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Farming First calls on governments to enable agricultural innovation and empower farmers to safeguard the world’s biodiversity while increasing global food production.

Sustainable agricultural production needs to be achieved through both accelerated research programmes and broader uptake of existing technologies by farmers.   Public-private partnerships are key to identifying and addressing these innovation gaps as well as disseminating effective agricultural tools and technologies to farmers.

Ajay Vashee, President of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) says:

Government leaders need to recognise how interconnected agriculture and biodiversity protection are. Today’s farmers are the true stewards of our global ecosystem.

The twin challenge of conserving ecosystems while ensuring future food security means that the role of the farmer is more crucial than ever. With 2.3 billion more mouths to feed by 2050, food production must increase by 70 per cent, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation, despite the threats of climate change and limited availability of natural resources.

Like biodiversity, agriculture benefits from fertile soils, fresh water and natural predators, and farmers can also play a role in maintaining natural habitats and other ecosystem services.

Luc Maene, Director General of the International Fertilizer Industry Assocation says:

Farmers around the world are facing competing pressures to grow more food while preserving the world’s biodiversity.  To succeed, agriculture and biodiversity conservation efforts must walk hand in hand.

The Farming First coalition supports the following principles for protecting biodiversity through agriculture:

• Safeguarding natural resources through sustainable agricultural practices such as sustainable use of land, water and energy resources, conservation agriculture, cultivation of local species and giving value to marginal areas such as wetlands and forests.

• Sharing knowledge of agriculture’s role in preserving biodiversity through stewardship programmes for farmers and government mechanisms for incentivising biodiversity-friendly practices.

• Building local access to agricultural tools and infrastructure which help protect biodiversity, such as multi-cropping systems or crop rotation, without jeopardising agricultural production.

• Protecting harvests by building storage facilities and transport mechanisms, whilst providing support to farmers in managing weather variations and minimising the amount of yield lost to prevent further expansion in land used for agriculture.

• Enabling access to markets via payment incentives for ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration, reforestation, measures against desertification and other sustainable land management practices as well as developing and supporting markets for underutilised local species which encourage local biodiversity.

• Prioritising research imperatives by addressing both farmers’ needs and the specificities of local ecosystems as well as factoring in farmers’ local expertise and providing resources such as seed banks.

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A case study by IFAP shows how strategies have been put into place to safeguard the manioc crops from the higher temperatures and heavy rains brought on by climate change.

In order to preserve the most beneficial varieties, both economically and ecologically, agricultural researchers identified the local varieties that were best adapted to climate changes, and then helped to promote the most effective farming techniques amongst the farmers to increase productivity.

On a national level, policies are being put in place to establish agroforestry projects in rural areas to increase soil fertility as well as to invest and improve their weather stations to observe changes in the climate. Agricultural organisations are also training farmers in the techniques needed to restore soils.

Through an integrated approach to improving agricultural practices and resources, farmers in Gabon are becoming increasingly able to cope with unpredictable weather patterns and safeguard an important source of nutrients for the Gabonese people.

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