Climate-Smart Agriculture

Policies and planning

Climate-smart agriculture needs to be mainstreamed into core government policy, expenditure and planning frameworks. To be effective CSA policies must contribute to broader economic growth, poverty reduction and sustainable development goals. They must also be integrated with disaster risk management strategies, actions, and social safety net programmes.

Coordination and integration between various sectors dealing with climate change, agricultural development and food security at national, regional and local level is a key requirement for creating an enabling policy environment.  

Providing incentives for adopting CSA, such as payments for environmental services (managing land to provide an ecological service), encourages farmers to take on climate-smart practices and to overcome initial investment barriers.

FAO has identified two areas of intervention related to policies and planning for the adoption of climate-smart agriculture:

Support to countries to ensure that agriculture and CSA are included in mid to long-term development planning processes and investment decisions and support to countries in creating the required policy, financial and enabling environment.