Climate change

Agriculture

© FAO/19655/G. BizzarriAgriculture is a source of climate change but also a solution to climate change if adequate sustainable production measures are adopted that hold substantial mitigation potential, and that contribute to adapt agriculture and food production systems to extreme events, raising temperatures, and increasing CO2 concentration.

To adapt to climate change farmers will need to broaden their crop genetic base and use new cultivars and crop varieties. They will need to adopt sustainable agronomic practices such as shift in sowing/planting dates, use of cover crop, live mulch and efficient management of irrigation and reduce the vulnerability of soil based agricultural production systems through the management of soil fertility, reduced tillage practices and management of the cycle of soil organic carbon more efficiently in grasslands and cropping systems. There will be a need to monitor pathogens, vectors and pests and assessing how well natural population control is working.

Activities

FAO assists member countries to create opportunities that enable farmers to benefit from climate change adaptation and to contribute to mitigation by empowering land users to make decisions on better practices to preserve their agroecosystems. This includes technology transfer, capacity building and policy advice.
FAO continues to develop specific projects, contributes to developing and collecting unique datasets promoting adaptation and mitigation practices, and provides a forum for technical discussions and policy advice related to adaptation and mitigation practices in crop land and grassland.

Publications

“Climate-Smart” Agriculture

1 December 2010 This paper examines some of the key technical, institutional, policy and financial responses required to achieve climate-smart agriculture which sustainably increases productivity, resilience (adaptation), reduces/removes Greenhouse Gases (mitigation), and enhances achievement of national food security and development goals. Building on case studies from the field, the paper outlines a range of practices, approaches and tools aimed at increasing the resilience and productivity of agricultural production systems, while also reducing and removing emissions. The second part of the paper surveys institutional and policy options available to promote the transition to climate‐smart agriculture at the smallholder level. Finally, the paper considers current financing gaps and makes innovative suggestions regarding the combined use of different sources, financing mechanisms and delivery systems. [more...]

Integrated Crop Management Vol. 9 - 2010 - Challenges and opportunities for carbon sequestration in grassland systems

22 October 2010 Practices that sequester carbon in grasslands can enhance productivity, and policies designed to encourage these practices could lead to near-term dividends in greater forage production and enhanced producer incomes. This report reviews the current status of opportunities and challenges for grassland carbon sequestration and identifies components that could foster the inclusion of grasslands in future climate agreements to enhance longer term adaptation to climate variability. It includes a policy brief to assist policy-makers in their development plans. [more...]

FAO. 2009. Low Greenhouse Gas Agriculture. Mitigation and adaptation potential of sustainable farming systems

11 January 2010 Is low greenhouse gas emission (GHG) agriculture possible? Is it, in fact, desirable? In seeking answers to these two basic but extremely relevant questions, this study examines current farming practices and incorporates scientific databases from long‑term field experiments as case studies for low GHG agriculture. Further, the study examines the changes that will be needed for low greenhouse gas agriculture systems to become a reality. [more...]

FAO. 2009. Seed Security for Food Security in the Light of Climate Change and Soaring Food Prices: Challenges and Opportunities

11 January 2010 Seed is one of the most crucial elements in the livelihoods of agricultural communities. It is the repository of the genetic potential of crop species and their varieties resulting from thecontinual improvement and selection process over time. The potential benefits from increasing the use of quality seeds of a diverse range of crop varieties by farmers are widely acknowledged as it increases food security through improved crop productivity. [more...]

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Francesco N. Tubiello, Atiqur Rahman, Wendy Mann, Joseph Schmidhuber, Marieta Koleva, Alexander Müller. 2009. Carbon financial mechanisms for agriculture and rural development: challenges and opportunities along the Bali Roadmap. An editorial essay

11 January 2010 Three-fourths of the world’s 1.2 billion poor live and work in rural areas; they directly depend on land, water and genetic resources, and the vagaries of climate, for their livelihoods. Their vulnerability and food security situation is expected toworsen under climate change. For instance, it has been suggested that increased climate variability and more frequent extreme events such as droughts and floodscould significantly increase risk of production failures in poor regions as early as the coming decades, i.e., by 2020–2030. [more...]

FAO. 2008. Climate Change and Food Security in Pacific Island Countries

11 January 2010 With increasing global temperatures, rising sea levels and more frequent and intense extreme weather events, Pacific islands countries, especially those in warmer latitudes, are the most vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.Their populations are expected to be among the first that will need to adapt to climate change or even abandon their traditional homeland and relocate. [more...]

FAO. 2008. Climate change adaptation and mitigation: challenges and opportunities in the food sector . High Level Conference on World Food Security - Information Paper

11 January 2010 The goal of Article II of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is to ensure stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in theatmosphere at a level that would prevent “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. “Such a level,” it mandates, “should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner." [more...]

FAO. 2008. Climate change: Implications for food safety

11 January 2010 The paper aims to identify potential impacts of anticipated changes in climate on food safety and their control at all stages of the food chain. The purpose is to raise awareness of the issue and to facilitate international cooperation in better understanding the changing food safety situation and in developing and implementing strategies to address them. [more...]

FAO. 2008. Climate-related transboundary pests and diseases. High Level Conference on World Food Security - Background Paper

11 January 2010 The movement of plant pests, animal diseases and invasive alien aquatic organisms across physical and political boundaries threatens food security and creates a global public concern across all countries and all regions. Countries allocate large resources to limit the spread and control of transboundary pests and diseases1 such as avian influenza, foot-and-mouth disease and locust. They also adapt animal and plant health services and activities and cooperate regionally and globally for prevention, early warning and control. [more...]

FAO. 2008. Community Based adaptation in Action, A Case Study from Bangladesh, Project Summary Report

11 January 2010 Bangladesh, due to its geo-physical position and socio-economic context, is highly prone to regular natural hazards and the impacts of climate change. In 2005, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) initiated a project at the request of the Bangladesh government that was designed to improve the adaptive capacities of rural populations and their resilience to drought and other climate change impacts. It also aimed to inform service providers and policy-makers of the learning and findings, in order to improve support to future adaptation processes. [more...]

FAO. 2008. Scoping agriculture - wetland interactions. Towards a sustainable multiple-response strategy

11 January 2010 Agriculture–wetland interactions (AWIs) are becoming more important as rising demand for food production exacerbates pressures on wetlands. The Millennium EcosystemAssessment (MA) identified agriculture as the major cause of wetland degradation and loss. However, while some ecosystem services, such as regulating and supporting services may be reduced, agricultural development has considerably increased the provisioning services of wetlands. [more...]

FAO. 2008. The genetic improvement of forage grasses and legumes to enhace adaptation of grasslands in climate change

8 January 2010 Grasslands cover about 70% of the world’s agricultural area. They have a crucial role in terms of food production and in the delivery of ecosystem services such as water supplies, biodiversity and carbon sequestration. The grasslands of the world face a range of challenges from climate change including the effects of elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide, increasing temperatures, changes inprecipitation regime and higher concentrations of ground level ozone. [more...]

FAO Regional Office for the Near East. 2008. A Review of Drought Occurrence and Monitoring and Planning Activities in the Near East Region

8 January 2010 Agricultural production and rural development under the harsh conditions of arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid regions have been the concern of FAO since its creation more than 60 years ago. FAO’s activities, centered on development project implementation and knowledge creation, are aimed at improving production systems and rural livelihoods, with a focus on harnessing natural resources and managing them in a sustainable manner to meet the increasing demands for food and income. These activities contribute to increasing resilience to drought, although they are not specifically targeted to drought per se. [more...]

FAO Regional Office for the Near East. 2008. The Near East Drought Planning Manual: Guidelines for Drought Mitigation and Preparedness Planning

8 January 2010 Drought is a complex phenomenon that caused more deaths during the last century than any other natural disaster, and Asia and Africa rank first among continents in the number ofpeople directly affected (Figure 1). Similarly, as shown in Figure 2, drought has affected more people than any other natural hazard in the Near East Region during the last thirty years. Conservative estimates report that at least 77 million people have been affected by drought in the region from 1979 to early 2008 (EM-DAT, 2008). [more...]

FAO/CILSS/OECD. 2008. Climate and climate change in West Africa

8 January 2010 In collaboration with the Sahel and West Africa Club, linked to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the Agrhymet Centre of CILSS (Permanent interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel), FAO has prepared a document on "Climate and Climate Change in West Africa" which presents the evolution of climate in Africa and in West Africa and analyzes the possible impacts of climate change on food production and food security in the region. [more...]

FAO/IFPRI. 2008. Impact of Climate Change and Bioenergy on Nutrition

8 January 2010 Food security has deteriorated since 1995 and reductions in child malnutrition are proceeding too slowly to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for halving hunger by 2015. Three major challenges threaten to drastically complicate efforts to overcome food insecurity and malnutrition: climate change, the growing use of food crops as a source of fuel and soaring food prices. [more...]

IIED/University of Greenwich/FAO. 2008. Climate change and land tenure. The implications of climate change for land tenure and land policy

8 January 2010 This document analyzes the implications for land tenure and land policy of climate change. It assesses the implications of ongoing anthropogenic climate change resulting from greenhouse gas emissions for land tenure and the role that land policy can play in climate change adaptation planning in the developing world; it also sets out a simple framework for tracing the linkages between climate change, impacts on land use systems, and the land tenure implications, including those which result from adaptation and mitigation responses to global warming. [more...]

SWAC/OECD, FAO. 2008. Strategic note on "Climate, climate change and agropastoral practices in the Sahel region"

8 January 2010 This strategic note has been prepared by the Sahel and West Africa Club, linked to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Agrhymet Centre of CILSS (Permanent interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel) and FAO for the High Level Conference on World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy, June 2008 in Rome. It presents the main conclusions of a study implemented by the three organisations on "Climate and Climate Change in West Africa". [more...]

FAO. 2007. Remediation of Arsenic for Agriculture Sustainability, Food Security and Health in Bangladesh

7 January 2010 Arsenic (As) in groundwater is a major health concern in Asia and the risks from using shallow tube wells (STWs) for drinking-water are wellknown. At present, twelve countries in the Asian region have reported high As levels in part oftheir groundwater resources. Bangladesh has the highest percentage of contaminated STWs (~20 percent) and an estimated 30 million people are dependent on those wells for domestic purposes. The problem originates in arsenic-rich bedrock of the Brahmaputra river basin that filters drinkingwater pumped to the surface through millions of tube wells. Since an initial investigation on As accumulation in rice undertaken by FAO with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2001, further scientific studies in the last couple of years have reported potentialrisks from As from dietary exposures. [more...]

FAO. 2007. The Genetic improvement of forage grasses and legumes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

7 January 2010 Grasslands are one of the most important ecosystems and forms of land use in the world. They are crucial for food production and deliver ecosystem services. However,particularly when used for livestock production, they are also a significant source of pollution including the greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide. Energy inputsinto grassland agriculture, particularly fertilisers, also contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. [more...]

last updated: Thursday, July 21, 2011

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