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In part thanks to its considerable contribution to deforestation, agriculture accounts for an estimated 30% of greenhouse gas emissions according to a recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Such statistics may make agriculture and forestry seem like unlikely partners. Yet agriculture and forestry can also be leveraged in a way that […]

Landscapes must provide food, water, carbon storage, biodiversity protection and rural development stimulation – and they must do it all in one go. If I were a landscape, I’d worry about my stress level. Perhaps it is time to call in a shrink? We are asking a lot of our landscapes at the Global Landscape […]

Joseph is a Kenyan farmer, and he is harvesting his crop in cyberspace. Joseph is taking the lead in growing a fraternity of people interested in agriculture through Facebook. Mkulima Young – “Young Farmer” in Swahili- the page he set up in January this year, has now gained 23,789 likes and continues to grow. Almost […]

Ruth DeFries – Denning Professor of Sustainable Development at Columbia University’s The Earth Institute – speaks about the importance of landscape approach for addressing climate change, at the Global Landscapes Forum, on the sidelines of the UNFCCC talks in Warsaw, 16 November 2013

There is a definite role for agriculture to play in climate change mitigation, but still far too little information on the scale of its potential contribution. This was the overriding message from yesterday’s COP 19 side event Scaling up Climate Smart Agriculture: policies, development and mitigation potentials, hosted by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF). The […]

What is it about agriculture that the world finds so hard? We eat its products every day, after all. Yet when it comes to adopting sensible policies for ensuring that people get fed, that farmers can make a living, and that agriculture does not contribute unnecessarily to climate change, the world’s diplomats are frankly clueless. […]