Effects of Global Adoption of Climate-smart Agriculture Practices. Preliminary results and Insights.

Alex De Pinto

Senior Research Fellow

Environment and Production Technology Division,International Food Policy Research Institute

Agriculture is also a major part of the climate problem. It currently generates 11 -29% of total GHG emissions.

Developing countries collectively produce the majority of agriculture-related emissions globally and are where emissions are expected to rise the fastest (Smith et al., 2014).

Agricultural emissions are also significant at national levels, contributing an average of 35% of emissions in developing countries and 12% in developed countries (Richards et al., 2015).

CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE:

New alliances are forming, e.g. Global Alliance for CSA, African CSA Alliance, with the objective of promoting and facilitating the development and the uptake of CSA. 31 countries make specific mention of CSA in their INDCs.

Agriculture: part of the problem and part of the solution

Climate-smart Agriculture

After years of dichotomy between climate change adaptation and mitigation in the climate change research community, the two concepts were combined in the term Climate-Smart Agriculture.

Climate Smart Agriculture was introduced in 2009 and became prominent a year later at the First Global Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change (FAO, 2010).

Possibly, after the disappointing experience with the carbon markets, a way to include mitigation in policy talks without it to be the main goal.

Climate-smart Agriculture

CSA is an umbrella term that includes many approaches, built upon geographically-specific solutions and characterized by a continuum of choices all aiming at making the agricultural sector better suited to handle the challenges of a new climate.

Three objectives:

Sustainably increasing agricultural productivity to support equitable increases in farm incomes, food security and development;

Adapting and building resilience of food systems and farming livelihoods to climate change at multiple levels; and

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, where possible.

Initially very prescriptive in nature: a menu of practices/technologies from which to choose

Evolving into a more “holistic” approach which includes systems, value chains, landscapes.

At IFPRI we begun by looking at the biophysical/production side and now…

Landscapes, risk management, institutions/governance, value chains, gender, and nutrition

Climate-smart Agriculture

The first two pillars are not controversial and taken by themselves not new

Carbon as a commodity is new. Traditionally carbon was important only for its relation with soil fertility

However, for CSA reduction of emissions is just a co-benefit: increasing sustainable productivity requires a more efficient use of inputs and therefore a likely reduction of emission intensity (emissions per unit of output)

CSA: Is there anything really new?

Effects of adoption of CSA practices

Global Adoption of Selected CSA Practices Simulations using

IFPRI’s IMPACT system of models and DSSAT crop model: 2010-2050

Maize, Wheat, and Rice (~41% of global harvested area)

Practices: No-till; Integrated soil fertility management (ISFM); Alternate Wet and Dry (AWD); Urea deep placement (UDP)

Two GCMs: GFDL and HadGEM, RCP 8.5

Adoption based on increase in yields

Description Maize Wheat Rice

Production (% change) +2.3 ˗ +2.4 +1.9 ˗ +2.5 +3.8 ˗ +3.9

Price (% change) -4.8 ˗ -5.8 -5.7 ˗ -8.2 -12.9 ˗ -13.0

Area (% change) -0.1 ˗ -0.5 -1.0 ˗ -1.2 -2.0 ˗ -2.1

Pop risk of hunger (% change) -3.1 ˗ -4.4

Undernourished children (% change) -1.1 ˗ -1.2

Yearly mean emission reduction

(million tons CO2 eq.)

19.2 ˗ 21.2

De Pinto et al. (in progress)

Dependent on adoption: 2% of 1 Gt CO2 eq.

Highest scenarios of adoption:

~ 10% of 1 Gt CO2 eq.

Effects in Sub-Saharan Africa

Positive effects on all crops and metrics

De Pinto et al. (in progress)

Production

Area

Malnourished Children

Pop. at risk of hunger

Wide adoption has effects on production comparative advantage

Some countries become more competitive in the world market and some less. Some will see area expansion and others a decrease.

Changes in area allocated to Maize, Rice and Wheat 2010 – 2050. De Pinto et al. (in progress)

Maize Rice Wheat

Some takeaway messages about CSA

It can initiate dialogs that rarely happen across ministries and it reinforce the importance of a multi-objective approach in agricultural policies

However, the transition to CSA is afflicted by barriers that we know too well: risk, uncertainty, imperfect markets, etc.

Some takeaway messages about CSA

To go beyond a modest contribution, CSA-approach must involve all aspects of ag. production and development: other land uses and landscapes, risk management, institutions/governance, value chains, etc.

If reducing emission is an true objective, more needs to be done including a more systemic view of agricultural development vis a vis other land uses.

Thank youa.depinto@cgiar.org

Dr. Ho-Young Kwon - Research Fellow,

Dr. Jawoo Koo - Senior Research Fellow,

Mr. Nicola Cenacchi - Research Analyst,

Ms. Shahnila Dunston – Research Analyst