Transforming Agriculture to Address Climate Change
Author: José Graziano da Silva | Published: November 30, 2016
Climate change is already having an impact on agriculture, and the implications for food security are alarming. They highlight the urgent need to support smallholders in adapting to the challenges the whole world faces. Farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk and community foresters all depend on activities that are intimately and inextricably linked to climate. Their livelihoods are thus the most vulnerable to climate change. They will require far greater access to technologies, markets, information and credit for investment to adjust their production systems and practices to climate change.
Action must be taken now to make agriculture more sustainable, productive and resilient. Otherwise, the impacts of climate change will seriously compromise food production in countries and regions that are already highly food-insecure – and jeopardise progress towards the key Sustainable Development Goals of ending hunger and poverty by 2030. We cannot let that happen, especially as the negative impacts on agriculture will be even more widespread after 2030.
Food security is under threat
Through its effects on agriculture, livelihoods and infrastructure, climate change threatens all dimensions of food security. It will expose both urban and rural poor to higher and more volatile food prices. It will also affect food availability by reducing the productivity of crops, livestock and fisheries, and hinder access to food by disrupting the livelihoods of millions of rural people who depend on agriculture for their incomes.
Hunger, poverty and climate change need to be tackled together. This is, not least, a moral imperative as those who are now suffering most have contributed least to the changing climate.
Adaptation strategies
FAO’s new State of Food and Agriculture 2016 report describes ways of adapting smallholder production to climate change and making the livelihoods of rural populations more resilient. Diversification and better integration of food production systems into complex ecological processes create synergies with the natural habitat instead of depleting natural resources. Agroecology and sustainable intensification 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.
More resilient agriculture sectors and intelligent investments in smallholder farmers can deliver transformative change, enhancing the prospects and incomes of the world’s poorest while buffering them against the impacts of climate change.