Agriculture in a Warmer World

Agricultural land covers 40-50% of the world’s land surface and accounts for 14% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions, making it one of the main contributors to climate change, as reported by IPCC (2007). The total global greenhouse gas contribution of agriculture from both direct and indirect sources extends up to 32%, and about 74% of total agricultural-related greenhouse gas emissions originate in developing countries. The most prominent sources of these emissions include land conversion to agriculture, Nitrous oxide released from soils, methane from cattle and enteric fermentation, biomass burning, rice production, manure, fertilizer production, irrigation, farm machinery, and pesticide production.

The impact of climate change on agriculture will have a wide range of cross-sectoral impacts affecting health, water and energy resources, ecosystems, and land use. This leads to meaningful economic consequences for the wellbeing and sustainable development of rural populations. Climate change’s impacts on agriculture over the next 50 to 100 years will include changing spatial and inter-temporal variability in stream flows, onset of rain days, and dry spells, more frequent floods and droughts, greater erosion rates from more intense rainfall events and flooding, increased crop water requirements from high temperatures, reduced precipitation and increased evaporation, yield changes for crops, including maize, wheat, and rice, and increased heat and water stress on livestock.

Adaptation programs are needed to manage the vulnerabilities of agricultural systems to climate changes. Climate change adaptation can be enhanced by altering exposure, reducing the sensitivity of the system to climate change impacts, and increasing the adaptive capacity of the system while explicitly recognizing sector-specific consequences. Adaptation programs include provision of crop and livestock insurance, social safety nets, new irrigation schemes, local management strategies, as well as research and development of stress-resistant crop.

The future of agricultural production relies on designing new ways to adapt to the likely consequences of climate change and changing agricultural practices to mitigate the climate damage that current practices cause, all without undermining food security, rural development, and livelihoods. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is a practice that sustainably increases productivity, resilience (adaptation), reduces/removes GHGs (mitigation), and enhances achievement of national food security and development goals. Efficiency, resilience, adaptive capacity, and mitigation are the four main components of CSA. The implementation of climate-smart agriculture practices should take into account the cost for research, irrigation efficiency, irrigation expansion, and the development of infrastructures.

Mitigation of climate change requires anthropogenic intervention to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of GHGs. Agriculture has immense potential for carbon sinks, as well as reducing emissions per unit of agricultural product for sustainable development co-benefits. Lower rates of agricultural expansion in natural habitats, agroforestry, treating of degraded lands, reduction or using more efficient use of nitrogenous inputs, better management of manure, and use of feed that increases livestock digestive efficiency are some practices to be mentioned. Soil carbon sequestration could be realized if carbon markets could introduce to “provide strong incentives for public and private carbon funds in developed countries to buy agriculture-related emission reductions from developing countries.” Furthermore, improved nutrient management could increase the plant uptake efficiency of applied nitrogen, reduce N2O emissions, while contributing to soil C sequestration.

The successful implementation of these strategies is crucial to mitigate the negative effects of climate change and secure a sustainable future for agriculture.

Global food security findings

A new index released recently by the Economist Intelligence Unit, that was commissioned by DuPont, has uncovered some interesting findings on food security.

Amongst them is the news that there is a strong correlation between women’s economic opportunities and access to affordable, safe food. The Global Food Security Index shows a hefty 0.93 correlation with the EIU’s Women’s Economic Opportunity Index, which measures female economic participation.

The reports says, “The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that if women had access to the same productive resources as men—better seeds, fertilisers and fungicides—they could increase their yield by 20% to 30%. As women make up 43% of the world’s farmers, this would increase total agricultural output in developing countries by 2.5% to 4%, and reduce hunger globally by 12% to 17%, according to the FAO.”

The correlation between food security and EIU’s Democracy Index was only 0.77 – a much weaker link than with women’s labour equality. This suggests that what happens to our food has less to do with politics and more to do with the social sphere.

The index ranks 105 different countries with a model that looks at 25 individual indicators with regards to affordability, availability and quality and safety.

Other findings of interest are that landlocked nations show only a modest increase in food insecurity, on average seven points lower on a scale to 100.

China was the country that had the least volatility of farm output over the last 20 years, but this is explained by generous subsidies that create a floor for food commodity prices. North African countries such as Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco showed the most variance.

The good news is that several of the countries at the very bottom of the index, notably Mozambique, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Nigeria, are also ones with strong economic growth, suggesting that their food situation may improve as living standards rise and as sound policies are hopefully put in place.

Source: economist.com

 

Four African leaders to join food security talks at G8 summit

President Barack Obama has invited four African leaders to join food security talks at the annual G8 summit this month.

Presidents Yayi Boni of Benin, John Mills of Ghana and Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania, and Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia will attend the summit at the presidential retreat in Camp David.

They will join Obama and other leaders of G8 member nations for a session on food security in Africa, the White House said in a statement.

G8 — or Group of Eight — comprises Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The summit planned for May 18-19 comes amid fears of famine and drought in some parts of Africa.

Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya battled drought last year, and aid groups have warned that several other nations are at risk of a hunger crisis.

“A combination of drought, poverty, high grain prices, environmental degradation and chronic under-development is affecting Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Chad, northern Cameroon and Nigeria,” the United Nations said this year. “More than 10 million people are struggling to get enough to eat, including 5.4 million in Niger.”

The food and nutrition insecurity threatens the fragile development the region has made, according to Valerie Amos, the U.N. aid chief.

Read from the source

ETHIOPIA: Late rains threaten food security

ADDIS ABABA, 30 March 2012 (IRIN) – Late and erratic mid-February to May (`Belg‘) rains could significantly reduce crop yields in central and southern Ethiopia and adversely affect food security, warn officials.

“There is concern about the food security situation in `Belg’-producing areas,” Judith Schuler, Ethiopia’s spokesperson for the World Food Programme (WFP), told IRIN. “Field reports, as well as remote sensing, confirm that the `Belg’ rains up to now are far below normal.”

She said there has been limited land preparation for, and planting of, sweet potatoes in northeastern parts of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region (SNNPR).

“Sweet potatoes are the major transitional crops consumed mainly among poorer households until the `Belg’ harvest begins in June,”according to the US Agency for International Development’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network.

In the Amhara (central highlands) region, for example, only 3 percent of planned cropland had been planted as of 16 March,according to an update by the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. `Belg’ crops there, and in eastern Oromia and Tigray regions, are normally planted by the end of February.

`Belg’ production accounts for 5-30 percent of annual food production in the northern `Belg’ cropping areas, and 30-60 percent, or more, of production in southern `Belg’ cropping areas.

Experts recently warned of a high probability of drought returning to the Greater Horn of Africa amid fears of poor rains in March-May 2012.

“We don’t think the situation will improve any time soon and the rainfall might not come, particularly in southern and major ` Belg’ producing areas,” Diriba Koricha, director of the Forecast and Early Warning Department at the Ethiopian Meteorology Agency, told IRIN.

Almaz Demisse, a senior Ministry of Agriculture official, urged farmers to plant crops that have long cycle yields such as maize and sorghum.

Expected low yields are contributing to an increase in cereal prices; inflation is already running at 36.3 percent. “Food prices are showing an unseasonable increase and are higher than the average of the last five years,” said WFP’s Schuler.

“We are closely monitoring the situation since mid-February and jointly with the government we will do some rapid food security assessments in the coming weeks in SNNPR and possibly also in Amhara.”

Meanwhile, the government is planning ahead. “We are preparing to provide seedlings for farmers that want to replace what they already planted,” and “allocating enough food in every incidence command post located in [the] most affected areas,” Aklog Nigatu, spokesperson of Ethiopia’s Disaster Risk Management and Food Security Sector office, told IRIN.

Read from the source 

East Africa May Get Below-Normal Rain, Threatening Food Security

Rain may be “significantly” below average in the Horn of Africa’s main growing season, potentially threatening a region still recovering from famine in 2011, the Famine Early Warning Systems network reported.

Rain from March through May in the region, which includes Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, is expected to begin late and amount to only 60 percent to 85 percent of average, the U.S.- funded provider of food-security warnings wrote in a statement on its website dated April 3. Poor rains are likely to reduce local food security, it said.

The amount of precipitation was previously expected to be between 75 percent and 105 percent of the long-term average, based on a February forecast. The Horn of Africa region suffered from drought and famine last year that affected more than 13 million people.

“This is a significant deterioration compared to earlier forecast analysis and would have significant impacts on crop production, pasture regeneration and the replenishment of water resources,” FEWS wrote.

Below-average rain means the number of people experiencing food insecurity and the severity of conditions are likely to increase, according to the report.

In the worst-case scenario, rainfall would be less than 60 percent of average, meaning a “major failure” of the region’s main growing season similar to the “very dry years” of 2000 and 2011, according to the report. The chance of the worst-case scenario is estimated at 30 percent, FEWS said.

“Given the impacts of extreme food insecurity and famine during 2011 on human health and household livelihoods, and the likelihood of a poor March-May season, humanitarian partners should immediately implement programs to protect livelihoods and household food consumption in the eastern Horn of Africa,” wrote FEWS, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rudy Ruitenberg in Paris at rruitenberg@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net

Read from the source

Africa: World Scientists Tackle Food Insecurity

Dr. Christine Negra is the Secretariat of the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change.

Nearly one billion people in the world are undernourished, while millions suffer from chronic diseases due to excess food consumption. Global demand for agricultural products is growing and food prices are rising, yet roughly a third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted.

Climate change threatens more frequent drought, flooding, and pest outbreaks, and the world loses 12 million hectares of agricultural land each year to land degradation. Land clearing and inefficient practices make agriculture the largest source of greenhouse gas pollution on the planet.

Clearly, humanity must transform the way food is produced, distributed, and consumed in response to changes in climate, global population, eating patterns, and the environment. “To operate within a ‘safe space’ for people and the planet, we need to balance how much food we produce, how much we consume and waste and how much agriculture contributes to further climate change,” explains South African Commission Professor Bob Scholes of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

To address these alarming patterns, an independent commission of scientific leaders from 13 countries released today a detailed set of recommendations to policymakers on how to achieve food security in the face of climate change.

In their report, the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change proposes specific policy responses to the global challenge of feeding a world confronted by climate change, population growth, poverty, food price spikes, and degraded ecosystems. The report highlights specific opportunities under the mandates of the Rio+20 Earth Summit, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Group of 20 (G20) nations.

Chaired by Sir John Beddington, the Commission draws upon the diverse expertise of its members which include senior natural and social scientists working in agriculture, climate, food and nutrition, economics, and natural resources in governmental, academic, and civil society institutions in Australia, Brazil, Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, France, Kenya, India, Mexico, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam.

To understand the path forward, the Commission reviewed the major components and drivers of the global food system including the role of changing diet patterns; the link between poverty, natural resource degradation, and low crop yields; the need to address inefficiencies in food supply chains; gaps in agricultural investment; and the patterns of globalized food trade, food production subsidies, and food price volatility.

The Commissioners concluded that humanity’s collective choices related to agriculture and food systems must be revisited if we are to meet our food needs and stabilize the global climate.

For each of their 7 major recommendations, the Commission’s final report characterizes the current policy landscape, the major opportunities for positive change and the roles that specific communities can play. These include treaty negotiators, global donors, agribusinesses, farmers’ associations, multilateral agencies, researchers, national governments, and others.

The report weaves together issues that have commonly been ‘stovepiped’ into different scientific disciplines, economic sectors, policy processes, and geographic regions. And it outlines a more integrated approach for dealing with the urgent, globally interconnected challenges.

These multiple emergent challenges – food insecurity, climate change, increased competition for energy, water, degradation of land, and biodiversity – are connected in complex ways and demand an integrated management approach. Efforts to alleviate the worst effects of climate change cannot succeed without simultaneously addressing the crises in global agriculture and the food system and empowering the world’s most vulnerable populations.

“We must create an enabling environment for all stakeholders, from small farmers to national governments, to invest in the economic and environmental resiliency of their land resources,” reports Commissioner Professor Tekalign Mamo, state minister and advisor to the Ethiopian Minister of Agriculture.

The Commission’s Action points (full details elaborated in Final Report document)

1. Integrate food security and sustainable agriculture into global and national policies

2. Significantly raise the level of global investment in sustainable agriculture and food systems in the next decade

3. Sustainably intensify agricultural production while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other negative environmental impacts of agriculture

4. Target populations and sectors that are most vulnerable to climate change and food insecurity

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

6. Reduce loss and waste in food systems, particularly from infrastructure, farming practices, processing, distribution and household habits

7. Create comprehensive, shared, integrated information systems that encompass human and ecological dimensions

The Commission was set up by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) with additional support form the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development. Learn more about the Commission at http://ccafs.cgiar.org/commission.

For more information on climate change and food security, see: Achieving Food Security in the Face of Climate Change, Community Livelihood Strengthens Food Security at Grass Root Level, Four Billions New Reasons Why Food Will Become a Local Government Issue, Bridging the Gap in Climate Change Strategies, Agricultural Development Key to Ending Hunger in Afric

read from the source

Africa: Climate Change Exacerbates Scarcity in Already Food Insecure Regions

A recent report by The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), offers new insight into the threat that climate change poses to the livelihood of millions of farmers worldwide. The report, Mapping Hotspots of Climate Change and Food Insecurity in the Global Tropics, maps areas at risk of crossing “climate thresholds – temperatures too hot for maize or beans,” by 2050.

These threshold models were compared against food insecure countries, defined as places where over 40 percent of children under the age of five experienced stunted growth as a result of malnutrition. When these two factors overlap, the model “reveals places around the world where the arrival of stressful growing conditions could be especially disastrous,” says Polly Ericksen, a senior scientist at the CGIAR’s International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

Within these hotspots, “there are 265.7 million food-insecure people living in agriculture intensive areas that are highly exposed to a potential five percent decrease in the length of the growing period” according to a press release announcing the results of the report. This may sound like a small reduction but “these are areas highly exposed to climate shifts, where survival is strongly linked to the fate of regional crop and livestock yields, and where chronic food problems indicate that farmers are already struggling and they lack the capacity to adapt to new weather patterns,” explains Ericksen.

CGIAR emphasizes that “growing seasons of at least 120 days are considered critical not only for the maturation of [wheat] and several other staple food crops, but also for vegetation crucial to feeding livestock.” But, according to their projections, “prime growing conditions are likely to drop below 120 days per season in intensively farmed regions of northeast Brazil and Mexico” by 2050.

Furthermore, according to the press release, “there are 170.5 million food-insecure and crop-dependent people in parts of West Africa, India and China who live in areas where, by the mid-2050s, maximum daily temperatures during the growing season could exceed 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit).” At these temperatures maize, rice, and bean yields are expected to decline.

CGIAR researcher Patti Kristjanson says that the report signals that farmers will have to develop new ways to adjust to climate change. “Farmers already adapt to variable weather patterns by changing their planting schedules or moving animals to different grazing areas” she explains. But “what this study suggests is that the speed of climate shifts and the magnitude of the changes required to adapt could be much greater”, she concludes.

This means that farmers need to consider growing different crops. Due to its temperature sensitivity, wheat might be replaced with indigenous crops, like sorghum or cassava, which are better adapted to changing climate conditions. Farmers will also need to adopt farming systems, such as agroforestry, that help them to maintain and increase food production, according the report. The report’s co-author, Philip Thornton, stresses that while innovations can help countries develop agricultural practices that address challenges presented by climate change, time is limited. “Major adaptation efforts are needed now if we are to avoid serious food security and livelihood problems later,” he explained.

Grant Potter is an executive assistant at the Worldwatch Institute and Graham Salinger is a research intern with the Nourishing the Planet project.

read from the source

West Africa need $69.8 in aid to avert ‘full-scale’ food crisis – UN

ROME (AFP) – The United Nations food agency FAO on Friday appealed for an extra $69.8 million (53.2 million euros) to aid 790,000 vulnerable households in the drought-hit Sahel region in West Africa.

The region needs “urgent support to prevent a full-blown food and nutrition security crisis and to protect and restore livelihoods of communities dependent on livestock and crops,” the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said.

FAO said at least 15 million people were at risk of food insecurity in the Sahel, including around 5.4 million in Niger, 3.6 million in Chad, 3.0 million in Mali, 1.7 million in Burkina Faso and 850,000 in Senegal.

Apart from the drought, FAO said the crisis was due to sharp declines in cereal production and high grain prices, a shortage of fodder for livestock and a reduction in remittances from migrant workers in other countries.

“Total 2011 cereal production in the Sahel was on average 25 percent lower than in 2010, but as much as 50 percent lower in Chad and Mauritania,” it said.

It said the rise in internally displaced people in the region, including thousands fleeing conflict in northern Mali, had also aggravated the crisis.

“We need to act to prevent further deterioration of the food security situation and to avoid a full-scale food and nutrition crisis,” FAO chief Jose Graziano da Silva said.

“Part of the solution is to improve the access of farmers and herders to local markets, encourage the use of local products, and apply risk-reduction good practices to reinforce their resilience”, he said.

read from the source

Africa: Developing Countries Urged to Invest in Food Security

The role of small scale farmers in ensuring food security has been highlighted as one of strategies that developing countries need to prevent famines and prevent food crises.

In a statement, David Nabarro, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Food Security and Nutrition, said governments, particularly in Africa need to prioritise food security strategies and invest in their agricultural sectors to reduce poverty.

He said one of the main challenges the world faces today is ensuring that it can meet the demand for food for nine billion people by 2050.

To tackle this challenge, he said, countries should focus on making sure that they have the necessary measures in place to be able to provide food for their population. However, this has become more complex in recent years due to volatile food prices.

During 2007 and 2008, rises in food prices triggered a crisis which saw riots in more than 35 countries as prices soared by as much as 30 to 50 per cent and 700 million people suffered from hunger.

Since then, prices have remained inconsistent due to uncertainty in the world economy as well as changes in demand and shortage of supplies.

Mr. Nabarro, who coordinates the High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis, said one of the UN’s priorities was to continue to sustain efforts in the 22 countries that experience recurring food crises, such as Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, and parts of Uganda and northern Tanzania.

He also stated that one the main lessons learned by the international community in the past years was that repeated bursts of humanitarian aid were not the answer to help these countries in the long term.

Instead, funding for programmes that increase their resilience and investing in small farmers, who produce most of the food in Africa, proved to be a better strategy.

Long-term investment in Ethiopia meant it had been successful in providing a safety net to its citizens, while in Kenya poor infrastructure had hindered the ability to move food from plentiful to drought-hit areas, he noted.

read from the source

East Africa Food Security Brief – January 2012

Food security outlook points to deepening food insecurity in some areas even as OctoberDecember rains result in marked improvement in Crisis areas

Current food security conditions and expected outcomes during the Outlook period (through March 2012) are mixed across the East Africa region. Several areas previously at Crisis levels of food insecurity (IPC Phase 3) have shown considerable improvement, namely parts of Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya, following favorable and mostly above normal OctoberDecember rains, coupled with a major humanitarian response. Notwithstanding these improvements, the outlook in the eastern Horn is measured, due to the underlying fragility of livelihoods, which have been weakened by a succession of poor seasons and multiple shocks, principally drought, conflict, livestock disease, above-normal food and non-food prices, and more recently, floods. Furthermore, most of the improvements in food security are supported by humanitarian response rather than substantial recovery in productive capacities or enhanced resilience of livelihoods. Blue Nile and South Kordofan states in Sudan, and Jonglei State and border areas of South Sudan, are now emerging as the areas of greatest concern, in addition to parts of southern Somalia. Food insecurity in Sudan and South Sudan is driven by the poor recent agricultural season, and intense conflict and heavy fighting in some areas, as well as restrictions on trade and humanitarian access.

Food security has improved in parts of Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, and Somalia, and the prognosis for the first quarter of 2012 is generally favorable. However, reports by FAO suggest that food security in Djibouti is anticipated to decline through March particularly for pastoralists, the urban poor, and about 19,000 Somali and Yemeni refugees in camps. An estimated 210,000 people will face Stressed levels (IPC Phase 2), while localized households in the north will face Crisis levels. In western Ethiopia, food security is projected to improve to No Acute Food Insecurity (IPC Phase 1) in parts of the cropping highlands after favorable October to December rains. However, Belg cropping areas in North Wollo and northeastern parts of Afar experienced poor rains and poor households will likely remain in Crisis through March 2012. Households in the southern and southeastern pastoral and agropastoral areas of Ethiopia bordering Kenya, South Sudan and Somalia are expected to be in Crisis through March 2012, including about 143,000 Somali refugees at Dollo Ado camp and more than 30,000 Sudanese refugees in Benishangul-Gumuz region in western Ethiopia. Insecurity and suspected polio cases are cause for serious concern in Dollo Ado, while water shortages are increasing in Oromiya and Somali regions.

read from the source