Agriculture is a source of climate change and according to the IPPC AR4 roughly 14% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions derive from the agriculture sector. But agriculture is 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 climate variability such as recurrent droughts and floods events, raising temperatures, and increasing CO₂ concentration. The challenge is how agriculture and the millions of small-scale land users in the agricultural sector (which constitute 75% of the poor in developing countries), can improve the sustainability of production systems by adapting to climate change and by adopting practices that sequester greenhouse gases effectively especially in tropical and fragile environments. 

Food security and climate change can be addressed together by transforming agriculture and adopting practices that are "climate-smart"

A number of production systems are already being used by farmers and food producers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, adapt to climate change, and reduce vulnerability. The FAO website on climate-smart agriculture provides examples of many of these production systems considered as "climate-smart" and will be constantly updated to highlight additional examples and lessons learned from around the world 

To adapt to climate change farmers will need to broaden their crop genetic base and use new cultivars and crop varieties – with different thermal/temperature requirements, better water use efficiency and improved resistance to pest/disease. 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

AGP assists member countries to create opportunities that enable farmers to benefit from adapting to climate change and contributing to climate mitigation, through technology transfer that empower land users to make decisions on better practices to preserve their agroecosystems through capacity building and through policy advice.

AGP 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.

For more information about AGP's work on climate change, click here