FAO.org

Climate-smart agriculture is a broad approach with ambitious goals that involve a diverse spectrum of sectors, stakeholders and disciplines, and cover a wide range of locations and timescales. For this reason, making the transition to climate-smart agriculture requires changes at many levels of policy making. To facilitate the needed changes, this module lays out a step-by-step guide to support the implementation of the climate-smart agriculture approach. The steps in the guide accommodate the site-specific nature of the climate-smart agriculture interventions and helps maximize synergies and reduce trade-offs among climate-smart agriculture's three objectives: sustainably increase agricultural productivity and food security; support the adaptation of vulnerable agricultural communities to the impacts of climate change; and, where possible, remove or reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The step-by-step process described in this module also can help harmonize activities carried out at the different levels of climate-smart agriculture interventions from the field level to the national policy level.   

Other modules in this sourcebook have documented the challenges climate change poses to the agricultural sectors and highlighted options that can contribute to the objectives of climate-smart agriculture in various settings. Rather than discussing the steps for designing and implementing projects and policies to promote these interventions, this module develops a theory of change for the climate-smart agriculture approach and describes an overarching set of steps that need to be taken to implement it in national policy making. Climate-smart agriculture activities, which have been selected based on sound empirical evidence, can be implemented at the local level (e.g. the promotion of agroforestry), the national level (e.g. the delivery of local and timely weather forecasts) or the regional level (e.g. the transboundary management of key natural resources, such as water bodies and forest catchment areas). The steps outlined in this module encompass all these levels to ensure the needed reorientation of policy making for making a transition to climate-smart agriculture. 

Climate-smart agriculture 101, published by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) has set out a four-step approach to the development of a climate-smart agriculture plan including situation analysis, targeting and prioritization, programme support and monitoring, evaluation and learning. These four steps are a subset of the steps discussed in detail in this module. This module expands the scope of the CCAFS climate-smart agriculture guide to cover all sectors at multiple levels and provides additional detail on the available tools for capacity development and partnership building.

Climate-smart agriculture is embedded in the pursuit to achieve sustainable food and agriculture. Reaching this goal requires activities in four broad areas of action: (i) the creation of an evidence base to motivate, support and monitor change; (ii) continuous dialogue with stakeholders; (iii) formulation of tools to enable change; and (iv) innovative approaches to create and sustain change in food and agricultural systems (FAO, 2014). (see Figure C10.1). This module's step-by-step guidance for implementing climate-smart agriculture, as conceptualized in the theory of change, is based on these four broad areas of action.

The theory of change for the implementation of climate-smart agriculture featuring these four areas of action is illustrated in Table C10.1. Other modules of this sourcebook, particularly module A.1, have described the origins of climate-smart agriculture and the challenges it seeks to address. The problem statement for climate-smart agriculture can be articulated as: “climate change is threatening agriculture’s ability to feed a growing global population and provide the basis for economic growth and poverty reduction.” The main challenge to be addressed by climate-smart agriculture is the need to transform agriculture production systems and food chains to so that they sustainably increase agricultural productivity and incomes; support the adaptation of vulnerable agricultural communities to the impacts of climate change; and, where possible, remove or reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Activities to bring about the needed transformational change are grouped under three areas of action for sustainable food and agriculture:  evidence, dialogue and tools. The tools required for the implementation of the climate-smart agriculture include analytical tools to create evidence and the tools mentioned in Figure C10.1 to guide policies and financing. 

The implementation of climate-smart agriculture approach strives to achieve the three outcomes that are grouped under the fourth area of action 'practice change': the enhancement of capacities to identify, design, implement and monitor climate-smart agriculture interventions; the establishment of continuous feedback loops between science and policy on climate-smart agriculture; and the maintenance of an innovative and dynamic enabling environment capable of sustaining change. Ultimately, the desired impact of the theory of change is: “Agricultural productivity and incomes are sustainably improved in a resilient food and agriculture system that also harnesses mitigation opportunities where possible.” 

It is important to underline the fact that the four areas of action for sustainable food and agriculture are not linear. There are continuous interactions between these different areas, as highlighted in Figure C10.1. The steps described in the next section are organized under the headings of the 'evidence' column of the theory of change. They follow a logical flow to establish the needed evidence base to support climate-smart agriculture planning and implementation. At each step the necessary actions to establish dialogue and utilize available tools is considered. Given its overarching role in supporting the implementation of the climate-smart agriculture approach, capacity development and partnership building is addressed in a separate section. See also module C1 on system-wide capacity development.