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2016-10-20 |

Smallholders need support in adapting to climate change, FAO report

Drought Agriculture will be affected by drought (Photo: CC0)

A rapid transformations of food and farming systems is needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change, according to a new report released on Monday. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warns that up to 122 million more people worldwide, most of them small-scale farmers, could be pushed into extreme poverty by 2030 as a result of climate change. The UN agency’s flagship report “The State of Food and Agriculture 2016” underscores that agriculture faces the challenge of producing more food while cutting greenhouse gas emissions caused by food production. The authors highlight that the impacts of climate change on agriculture and the consquences for food security are already alarming. However, a “business as usual” approach could put millions more people at risk of hunger. By 2030, the number of people living in poverty could increase by 35 to 122 million relative to a future without climate change, largely due to its negative impact on incomes in the farming sector. “There is no doubt climate change affects food security,” said FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva, “What climate change does is to bring back uncertainties from the time we were all hunter gatherers. We cannot assure any more that we will have the harvest we have planted.” Negative effects of climate change are already being felt in some cereal crop yields. The regions that will be most affected are sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia, those people who rely on agriculture for their livelihoods will be hit hardest. Climate change will expose both urban and rural poor to higher and more volatile food prices. “Everybody is paying for that, not only those suffering from droughts,” said Graziano da Silva. The report points out that helping the world’s more than 500 million smallholder farmers adapt to climate change is critical for global poverty reduction and food security. Smallholder agricultural systems can adapt by adopting climate-smart practices, diversifying on-farm agricultural production and diversifying into off-farm income and employment. Agroecology and sustainable intensification, says the FAO report, are examples of approaches that improve yields and build resilience through practices such as green manuring, nitrogen-fixing cover crops and sustainable soil management, and integration with agroforestry and animal production. Widespread adoption of nitrogen-efficient practices alone would reduce the number of people at risk of undernourishment by more than 100 million, the report estimates. In addition, water-conserving alternatives to the flooding of rice fields, for example, could cut methane emissions by 45%. FAO says that economically viable and sustainable farming practices are available but barriers to their adoption must be overcome. Obstacles can include input subsidies that promote unsustainable farming practices, poorly aligned incentives as well as inadequate access to markets, credit, extension services and social protection programmes, which often disadvantage women. Action has to be taken now, emphasized Graziano da Silva, since the adverse impacts of climate change will only worsen with time. Slow Food International welcomed the report and the backing given to agroecology, but critized that the authors do not give enough attention to industrial meat production and that there is no identifiable stance on genetically modfied crops in the report. (ab)

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