All talk No Action?

Despite growing needs for agricultural adaptation to climate change, in the hopes that new technology and skills may aid in the mitigation of climate change, financial and political actions have been slow to emerge.

At the 15th FCCC Conference of the Parties (COP-15) in Copenhagen, negotiators established a text on agriculture, but no agreement was reached.  During COP-17, in Durban, many public figures called for action on agriculture including former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, South African President Jacob Zuma, former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, and Prime Minister of Ethiopia Meles Zenawi.  Over 500 people attended the third Agriculture and Rural Development Day (ARDD) meeting, where crucial steps with the goal of preventing a future of climate-induced collapse of the food system, were discussed.  However, notwithstanding this clear call for action the outcome was somewhat lack luster.  The document produced being the “Durban Platform for Enhanced Action”, which commits parties to reach a legal framework for reducing global emissions by 2015. The only explicit agricultural agreement was to consider adopting a framework for “sectoral actions”, which could include those related to the agriculture sector.  A 5^th of March deadline was set by which parties must provide evidence for the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technology Advice (SBSTA) to “exchange views on agriculture”.  

Some view the events of COP-15 as a “welcome first step” though far smaller than what is required if a significant impact is to be made. Reasons for the modest progress i.e. lack of adoption of a formal program on agriculture, can be attributed to causes such as: the Variability in the vulnerability of nations to climate change, quantity to which countries contribute to international agricultural production and variation in the volume of green house gas emissions produced by agriculture between nations, to mention a few.  Furthermore, Some negotiators were concerned that technical challenges such as carbon monitoring by millions of farmers are too huge to develop agriculture agreements.

Largely the case is such that higher-income nations, agricultural organizations and the UN support an SBSTA woke program on agricultural adaptation and mitigation.  However, it is the low and middle-income nations who were less taken by the work program. 

 COP-18 held this time last year in Qatar was set to hold agriculture policy at the helm of it’s agenda, nonetheless, further debate and lack of agreement meant that again, no solid framework was agreed upon.  Largely differences of opinion seemed to stem from whether to include the role of agriculture in reducing  or mitigating  greenhouse gas emissions.

So How to Move Forward?

Beddington et al 2012 noted seven priorities identified by the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change in 2011, that should be strongly considered if we are ever going to move from all talk towards a solid policy action and achieve a “food-secure world” in the throws of climate change.  These seven priorities are as follows:

1.   Integrate food security and sustainable agriculture into global and national policies, including adaptation and mitigation;

2.   Increase global investment in sustainable agriculture and food systems;

3.   Sustainably intensify agricultural production while reducing emissions and other environmental impacts;

4.   Target programs and policies to assist vulnerable populations;

5.   Reshape food access and consumption to ensure that basic nutritional needs are met and to foster healthy and sustainable eating habits;

6.   Reduce food loss and waste across supply chains; and

7.   Create comprehensive information systems on human and ecological dimensions.

Some argue that food-security is one of the most pressing issues of the 21^st century and it is evident that immediate and coordinated effort is required. But what will it take to make the fish bite?

Sources-

Ingrid Öborn, Jan Bengtsson, Fredrik Heden, Lotta Rydhmer, Maria Stenström, Katarina Vrede, Charles Westin and Ulf Magnusson. (2013). Scenario Development as a Basis for Formulating a Research Program on Future Agriculture: A Methodological Approach.

H. C. J. Godfray, J. Pretty, S. M. Thomas3, E. J. Warham, J. R. Beddington. (2011). Linking Policy On Climate and Food. Science. 331.

J. Bellarby, B. Foereid, A. Hastings, P. Smith, Cool Farming: Climate Impacts of Agriculture and Mitigation Potential (Greenpeace, Amsterdam, 2008).

Foresight, The Future of Food and Farming: Challenges and Choices for Global Sustainability. Final Project Report (Government Office for Science, London, 2011).