- Climate-smart agriculture: panacea or propaganda?
- What is Climate-Smart Agriculture? Background, opportunities and challenges
It is widely accepted that climate-smart agriculture is an important new approach to addressing food and nutritional security on one hand, and adaptation and mitigation on the other hand within one framework. Initiatives such as the Africa Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture and the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture will enable millions of smallholder farmers to increase their food production and earnings, and at the same time protect their ecosystems. However, there is still great uncertainty as to what should be considered as climate-smart practices, and how they might be scaled up effectively.
Mitigation and adaptation are inter-dependent in agroforestry systems and there are best practice options of climate-smart agriculture to demonstrate this. Recent research to quantify the effects of some climate-smart technologies based on a meta-analysis of over 1400 peer-reviewed publications showed positive impacts. Panelists drawn from Africa and Asia will report on innovative case studies and voice perceptions from the policy and civil society domains.
The panel presentation and discussion will focus on how these climate-smart technologies can be scaled-up to benefit smallholder farmers. This will be followed by a public debate.
Key questions addressed:
- What are the key requirements for successful climate-smart agriculture?
- How can we best monitor the impacts of climate-smart agriculture?
- What does it take to scale up climate-smart agriculture?
Background reading:
Climate-smart agriculture for food security
Climate-Smart Agriculture Sourcebook.
Beyond climate-smart agriculture: toward safe operating spaces for global food systems.
Framework Document of the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture
International Year of Family Farming
Lipper et al (in press) Climate-smart agriculture for food security. Nature Climate Change
