Abstract
Agriculture is considered to be “climate-smart” when it contributes to increasing food security, adaptation and mitigation in a sustainable way. This new concept now dominates current discussions in agricultural development because of its capacity to unite the agendas of the agriculture, development and climate change communities under one brand. In this opinion piece authored by scientists from a variety of international agricultural and climate research communities, we argue that the concept needs to be evaluated critically because the relationship between the three dimensions is poorly understood, such that practically any improved agricultural practice can be considered climate-smart. This lack of clarity may have contributed to the broad appeal of the concept. From the understanding that we must hold ourselves accountable to demonstrably better meet human needs in the short and long term within foreseeable local and planetary limits, we develop a conceptualization of climate-smart agriculture as agriculture that can be shown to bring us closer to safe operating spaces for agricultural and food systems across spatial and temporal scales. Improvements in the management of agricultural systems that bring us significantly closer to safe operating spaces will require transformations in governance and use of our natural resources, underpinned by enabling political, social and economic conditions beyond incremental changes. Establishing scientifically credible indicators and metrics of long-term safe operating spaces in the context of a changing climate and growing social-ecological challenges is critical to creating the societal demand and political will required to motivate deep transformations. Answering questions on how the needed transformational change can be achieved will require actively setting and testing hypotheses to refine and characterize our concepts of safer spaces for social-ecological systems across scales. This effort will demand prioritizing key areas of innovation, such as (1) improved adaptive management and governance of social-ecological systems; (2) development of meaningful and relevant integrated indicators of social-ecological systems; (3) gathering of quality integrated data, information, knowledge and analytical tools for improved models and scenarios in time frames and at scales relevant for decision-making; and (4) establishment of legitimate and empowered science policy dialogues on local to international scales to facilitate decision making informed by metrics and indicators of safe operating spaces.
Highlights
Agriculture is considered to be “climate-smart” when it contributes to increasing food security, adaptation and mitigation in a sustainable way
Introduction: history of the concept of climate-smart agriculture If trends in human diet and waste in food systems remain unchecked, food production would have to increase by about 70% to feed an estimated 9 billion people by 2050, with unprecedented consequences for the environment
Year later, at the First Global Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change at the Hague, the concept of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) was presented and defined as agriculture that “sustainably increases productivity, enhances resilience, reduces/removes greenhouse gas emissions, and enhances achievement of national food security and development goals” [3]. This definition represented an attempt to set a global agenda for investments in agricultural research and innovation, joining the agriculture, development and climate change communities under a common brand. Drawing on this original framing, CSA has been applied to diverse aspects of agriculture, ranging from field-scale agricultural practices to food supply chains and food systems generally
Summary
Food Security and Agricultural Mitigation in Developing Countries: Options for Capturing Synergies. 2. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: Harvesting Agriculture’s Multiple Benefits: Mitigation, Adaptation, Development and Food Security. 4. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: Climate-Smart Agriculture Sourcebook. Beddington J, Asaduzzaman M, Clark M, Fernández A, Guillou M, Jahn M, Erda L, Mamo T, Van Bo N, Nobre C, Scholes R, Sharma R, Wakhungu J: Achieving Food Security in the Face of Climate Change: Final Report from the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change. Copenhagen: CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS); 2012. Available at: http://ccafs.cgiar.org/sites/default/files/assets/docs/ climate_food_commission-final-mar2012.pdf (accessed 15 August 2013). McKenzie F, Ashton R: Safeguarding and Enhancing the Ecological Foundation of Agricultural and Food Systems to Support Human Well-being: Bridging the Implementation Gap. Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme.
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