Stories tagged: principle4

New UK Government Report on Food Security for 2030

defra A new report issued by the UK’s Department for Enviroment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) outlines how the UK government intends to address future food security. According to the Guardian, the ‘Food 2030’ report takes the most comprehensive approach to agriculture policy since the Second World War.

The UK food industry is worth £80 billion and employs 3.6 million people. Driven by the triple threat of a growing population, the threat of climate change and a vulnerable supply of natural resources, the new policy by Defra outlines what the UK government perceives to be priority actions for the future, including:

increasing the amount of food grown in Britain
reducing the impact of agriculture upon the environment
reducing agricultural emissions by the equivalent of 3 million tonnes of CO₂ by 2020
reviewing the impacts of UK consumption on agricultural economies in the rest of the world
addressing the issue of waste through reuse, recycling or energy generation
informing consumers about healthy, sustainable food choices.

The policy also spells out plans to double its investment in agricultural research to £80 million by 2013, with a focus on helping farmers in developing nations. Hilary Benn, the Secretary of State of Defra, said:

By turning research into practical ideas, and by learning from what the best are doing, we can achieve a lot more. Science will also tell us when nature is under strain.

‘Food 2030’ seeks to improve the UK food industry from production to distribution, providing better resources to farmers, whilst using natural resources sustainably to help the global food industry. Benn said:

We need to increase food production to feed a growing world population – there’ll be another 2-3 billion people in 40 years.

The Financial Times reports that plans detailing how these changes will be effectuated, including any necessary new legislation, will be released in the coming months.

Farming First Launches Climate Change Recommendations to Copenhagen Leaders

More than a billion farmers and their families around the world are on the front line of climate change. Their lives and livelihoods are directly affected by its impact, and they are also vital to implementing many of the solutions we need to help delay and deflect it.

Members of the Farming First coalition believe that:

Agriculture generally, and farmers especially, are vital to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
Increasing farm productivity in a sustainable way and decreasing waste and losses can significantly mitigate the effects of climate change, prevent deforestation, and protect biodiversity.
Adopting proven sustainable agricultural practices reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and enhances the effect of natural carbon sinks.
Further research and innovation are essential to invent the necessary adaptation and mitigation solutions.

Download the action plan (PDF) Download the press release (PDF)

Therefore, farmers must be involved in implementing climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. To support them, we must create sound and reliable incentives; we must share knowledge; and we must make adequate tools and technologies accessible to deliver both food and energy security.

As key stakeholders in agriculture, the world’s farmers, agronomists, scientists, engineers and industries are working together through an open coalition, to provide innovative solutions which reduce emissions from agriculture and adapt to climate change while increasing agricultural productivity to meet growing food needs.

Given growing food demands, we believe that rather than pursuing blanket reduction targets for GHG emissions in agriculture, governments should commit to climate change mitigation through improved and sustainable agricultural productivity across multiple factors including water use, carbon efficiency, improved nutrient use efficiency, and land-use intensity.

In response, the Farming First coalition would like to bring forward a series of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies in accordance with its six-point action plan for enhancing sustainable development through agriculture.

The Farming First coalition calls on all governments active in the COP15 negotiations to:

1. Support the unique role of agriculture in the global climate change response.

Ensure that agriculture is included within the UNFCCC negotiations at COP15 in Copenhagen.
Refrain from setting an absolute emission reduction target for agriculture as an industry.

2. Encourage the use of all available and applicable climate change solutions.

Promote agricultural best practices, particularly Integrated Crop Management (ICM), conservation agriculture, intercropping and fertilizer best management practices.
Support increased investment in agricultural research, including links between agriculture and climate change, involving research centres, programmes and industry R&D.

3. Promote funding mechanisms which support the needs of all levels and forms of farming.

Urge agricultural inclusion within multilateral financial mechanisms, potentially including the UNFCCC’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI).
Promote voluntary carbon credit systems for GHG offsets from agriculture and land use to reward farmers for their contribution.
Extend the scope of carbon markets to encompass the critical role of soil as a carbon sink.
Establish international technology assessment and sharing programmes for climate change, as well as capacity-building programmes, including the development of local and global centres of excellence.

4. Reward resource-based productivity improvements as a direct contributor to climate-change effectiveness.

Encourage productivity improvements – in a sustainable way – on existing agricultural land to avoid additional land clearing and give priority to the rehabilitation of degraded agricultural soils.
Recognise the positive contribution of sustainable land management practices through increased coordinated agricultural research.
Include robust methodologies and field-testing to overcome uncertainties around measurement, reporting and verification.
Provide incentives to farmers and other stakeholders which reward adoption of sustainable and responsible production systems, better performing technologies and the efforts of early adopters.

5. Invest in capability sharing to encourage all farmers to play a role in climate change while safeguarding local and global food security.

Enhance capacity building to implement sustainable land management policies and programmes.
Create a dedicated adaptation fund for agriculture accessible to farmers’ organisations in developing countries.

Read the full Farming First climate change policy on the Farming First site here.

Interactive Map Celebrates Agriculture’s Success Stories Across the World

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has just launched an interactive world map highlighting some of the many success stories in agricultural development from around the world. It is part of a wider upcoming launch of their newest publication, Millions Fed: Proven Successes in Agricultural Development, which will be released on 12 November.

The interactive map allows viewers to explore case studies of how agricultural research has benefited individual countries and regions. Each case study identifies key periods of time, target regions, and a more detailed account of each intervention. It also provides additional links to related case studies from elsewhere.

The range of case studies includes:

Combating cassava diseases in Nigeria and Ghana: This programme has contributed to 40% yield increases and has benefited 29 million local people
Introducing zero-tillage agriculture in Argentina: This practice has improved soil fertility, created new agricultural jobs, and helped keep global soybean prices low
Improving mungbean yields and resilience in south Asia: Introducing new varieties of mungbeans has helped improve yields, shorten maturity times, and increase resilience to pests to the extent that global production increased by 35% over the past 25 years.

There are many more case studies on the site, which helps create a visual cue for understanding agriculture’s advancements since the mid-20th century.

Climate Change Threatens Brazilian Agriculture

One of the many unwelcome side-effects of global warming is the unpredictable weather patterns that it causes. In Brazil, those same patterns could be the start of a severe disruption to the country’s agriculture sector.

Reuters breaks down what is at stake for Brazil and the rest of the world:

At stake is a $250 billion farm industry, food for millions of poor and supplies to world markets of Brazil’s major export crops such as soybeans and coffee.

The effects are already being felt in parts of Brazil. Excessive rains and crop disease have washed out or ruined many crops. Some farmers are looking to science for answers, as one farmer notes here:

We can’t change our planting calendar or the rains. How can I minimize my risks? We hope science will provide some answers.

Protecting harvests requires that farmers have the tools necessary to cope with changing weather and market variations. Brazil’s government has begun working with new coffee strains which resist heat (by having longer roots) to deal with the potential changes to the country’s agricultural model.

Agronomic research should aim to focus on these issues of water use, soil fertility, post-harvest losses, climate change, and alternative uses for by-products. The impact of this will be felt globally, as Brazil is the leading exporter of coffee, beef, soybeans, orange juice, and other farm products.

Drip Irrigation Helps Farmers in Bangladesh Grow Crops in Salt-affected Soil during Dry Season

March and April are the driest months in Bangladesh. During this time, up to 880,000 hectares of land is left fallow because of the intrusion of saltwater into the soil.

Bangladesh is benefiting from new research into how to make this land productive during the dry season. Using simple drip irrigation technology on raised planting beds, tomato farmers were able to increase their yields fourfold by leeching salts out of the root zone of the plants. Water for the drip irrigation is taken from ponds set up to collect rainwater. As a result, salinity levels drop to less than 30% of levels typically recorded.

Researchers at the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) in conjunction with the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) determined that this innovative farming practice had a benefit-cost ratio of 4.71. This means that for every dollar (or Bangladeshi taka) invested in the technology, it would return $4.71 extra in profits.

The extra yields could help feed the country’s 140 million people or could be sold as a cash crop to generate incomes.

Innovative Research Could Save Indian Potato Farmers Hundreds of Millions of Dollars Each Year

Potato blight is a disease caused by a fungus which targets potatoes both in the field and in storage. It can destroy an entire crop of potatoes within one or two weeks, and it can survive year after year in the tubers of infected potatoes, which release millions of new spores when the next rainy season comes around.

Potato blight has devastated potato crops for hundreds of years. In 2007, 70% of India’s potato crop and 50% of Bangladesh’s crop were destroyed. This blight was also responsible for the Irish potato famine, which killed millions of farmers in the mid 19^th century.

To combat this disease, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison worked to isolate a blight-resistant gene in a wild relative of the potato. They then partnered with an Indian organization to insert this gene into potato cultivars grown across South Asia. Other collaborators on the project included the US Agency for International Development, Cornell University, India’s Central Potato Research Institute and the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute.

As highlighted in the 2009 Better World Report, a recent round of field trials has proven successful, and the new potatoes will be licensed to both private and public enterprises soon. This means that poorer farmers can also access the seeds through local distribution channels.

A team of economists estimates that farmers will be able to double their incomes as a result of this new development. They will require less chemicals to protect their crops, and they are more likely to have excess yield which they can sell as a cash crop. The labour required to farm potatoes is also expected to decrease by 11%.