Photo by P.Bose

Identity-based and rights-based forest tenure policy reform has become a common phenomenon for marginalized groups in vulnerable areas of developed and developing countries. In the debate about tenure reform the identity of ethnic minorities (tribal and indigenous groups) living in and around the forest, and the ancestral rights of possession over forest land and resources are critical. However, these issues raise the question of whether the recognition of land tenure rights actually benefit women? (refer http://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/Infobrief/3750-infobrief.pdf)

Why Forest Tenure Matters for Tribal Women?

Since 1998, my research work focused on the Bhil tribal communities in three contiguous tribal districts (Jhabua, Dahod, and Banswara) in western India. Recent research findings on ‘Citizenship and Gender in Forest Tenure’ indicate that the tribal women in these regions face social, cultural, and political exclusion due to the changing regime of forest tenure and the lack of democratic decentralization. Among several factors the common cause for women’s exclusion is the external interventions that promotes a top-down ‘participation’ approaches without ensuring tribal women’s ‘political empowerment in decision-making’.

India has one of the oldest bureaucratic histories of forest governance through the Forest Department, which continues to be the domain of male domination. From 2006-2012 in-depth qualitative research conducted in the poorest tribal areas of India indicate that there is strong evidence of gender disparity in village-level democratic institutions known as ‘gram panchayats’ and in community based forest management.

This lack of empowerment not only has to do with gender discrimination but also with issues of citizenship affecting tribal communities as a whole. My forthcoming research paper highlights one of the challenges of India’s new forest tenure policy reform – the Forest Rights Act of 2006 – in relation to Bhil tribal people’s citizenship rights [Bose, P., in Press. Individual Tenure Rights, Citizenship, and Conflicts: Outcomes from Tribal India’s Forest Governance. Forest Policy and Economics:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389934112002456].

Towards Tribal Women’s Citizenship

Forest-dependent tribal women play a significant role in forest management. The majority of tribal women collectively access fodder, fuel wood, and non-timber forest products from degraded dry forestland in the semi-arid region of western India. Forest products constitute a major contribution to their household needs. Moreover, the majority of tribal women prefer to claim collective forest management rights (refer article in International Forestry Review on exclusion of tribal women’s access to forest in India http://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/articles/ACIFOR1104.pdf). In contrast tribal men in general claim individual forest land tenure rights. Yet, these tribal women remain invisible. What makes these tribal women vulnerable in forest governance?

Citizenship and women’s forest tenure rights remains an understudied subject. Recognition of tenure rights plays an important role i.e. in who controls and has access to forest land and resources, why and how. However, recognition of forest tenure rights does not directly ensure citizenship rights for tribal women. One of the aspects that my paper analyzes is tribal women’s perception toward the new forest tenure policy reform, and how it impacts their citizenship and social identity. Clearly the majority of women in the tribal villages consider government policies as contradictory. For tribal women, lack of tenure rights means that they are politically not well represented at the community level, making them second class citizens.

In conclusion the paper emphasizes that citizenship is an important element for forest tenure analysis. The recognition of forest tenure rights may not directly coincide with the citizenship rights of the tribal men and women. Citizenship is important because it reflects how tribal men and women’s ethnic identity is related to get recognized by the state, and their sense of ‘belonging’ to forest land.

Do let us know your thoughts below in comments. Kindly contact Purabi Bose (p.bose@cgiar.org) for further information on ‘Citizenship and Gender in Forest Land Tenure’ research at CIAT. 

Aerial view of the Amazon, near Manaus (Brazil). Photo: CIAT repository.

Spracklen and colleagues, from UK Universities, have empirically combined measures of air moisture, rainfall and vegetation density with current trends of Amazonian deforestation and report “reductions of 12 and 21 per cent in wet-season and dry-season precipitation respectively across the Amazon basin by 2050, due to less-efficient moisture recycling“.

Further, the study shows the largest relative reductions are likey to occur towards the Brazilian Amazon and its borders with the Cerrado, where current deforestation trends may be the largest across the whole forest. If deforestation trends keep on the same track of recent years, humanity will be faced with even more challenges than the Global Climate Models from the IPCC predict.

Just wondering, what would be the effect of this on water flow in the Amazon and other rivers, on the ecosystem services the basin provides, and on the people that make use of these ecosystem services?

We need better and stronger policies that allow us to stray from the business as usual pathway, and better forest monitoring and conservation. It is not only about few protected areas helping to conserve few landscape patches and the species present in them, and allowing tourism. Rather, we must realise the importance of keeping forests as entire units that have an strong role in controlling regional climate and from which ecosystem services humanity receives large benefits.

Persistence and diversification. Oddly enough, these two themes prove common between successful climate change adaptation, as well as getting to meet the Prime Minister of Nepal, Mr. Baburam Bhattarai. At least, this is the light-hearted lesson that The Adaptation to progressive climate change- and Oxford University Research Team drew from their recent meeting with the Prime Minister in early August.

Researchers Chase Sova and Prajwal Baral got the opportunity to meet the Prime Minister of Nepal, where they reinforced the need to consider agriculture as a key component of the climate change agenda.

Chase Sova and the Nepalese Prime Minister Mr. Baburam Bhattarai.

The chance to meet the Prime Minister doesn’t come by very often, and therefore both researchers took the opportunity to brief him on the research activities carried out by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). At present, this includes a team of Oxford PhD researchers moving between the Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, and the southern district of Rupandehi (near the border of India) piloting CCAFS climate analogue tool and Farms of the Future program.

Considered to be Nepal’s most highly educated leader to date, Bhattarai’s reputation is certainly merited. He recalled during the talk his recent trip to Rio de Janeiro for the Rio+20 sustainability conference, where he played an important role as spokesperson for developing nations, reflecting Nepal’s current position as chair of the least developed countries (LDCs) in that forum. He expressed that given Nepal’s minimal contributions to emissions, that the climate change “paradigm” in the country is very different when compared to industrialized nations. He referred to the commonly cited ‘pillars’ of sustainable development – economic, social and environmental – to suggest that Nepal will face the greatest challenge in navigating the social and economic pillars in the face of climate change.

The Prime Minister also spoke of the worrying indications of snowmelt in the high-mountains and deviations of rivers in the mid-hills region of Nepal, even going as for to inquire why the research team had chosen the Terai plains for their research given these pressing challenges. Chase Sova responded by indicating the potential ripple effects that a loss of agricultural productivity and rural livelihoods could have on Nepal’s largely agricultural based economy. He stressed the need for research in each of Nepal’s diverse ecological regions, including the Terai “breadbasket”, reinforcing the need to consider agriculture as a key component of the PM’s climate change agenda. Seeing as the researchers had the opportunity to direct these recommendations to the highest political level, CCAFS hopes the Prime Ministerwill  take these considerations to heart for future climate change discussions.

Read more about the Farms of the Future project: “One man’s future is another man’s present: Farms of the Future hits Tanzania”, on CCAFS blog.

This blog post was written by Chase Sova, visiting researcher based at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). To get more updates on our work, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter @Cgiarclimate.

Figura 1: Eventos de anomalía  observados en intervalos anuales  en la temperatura oceánica, se prevé para el futuro el incremento. Según NOAA

‘La naturaleza y la gravedad de los impactos a fenómenos climáticos extremos no dependen  solo de los propios fenómenos sino también de la exposición y la vulnerabilidad’ IPCC.

ESCENARIOS ESPERADOS

Según el IPCC, el número de eventos climáticos extremos seguirá aumentando. Esto unido a la creciente vulnerabilidad humana para responder y adaptarse en un lapso corto de tiempo, está transformando los eventos extremos en desastres climáticos que puede retrasar incluso el índice de desarrollo en un país dependiente de fuentes agroeconómicas, un ejemplo de estos efectos son:

• Aumento en la frecuencia y severidad de las olas de calor.

• Veranos más secos y largos, esto llevara a un mayor estrés calórico en la fauna y la flora, daños a las cosechas, incendios forestales y presión sobre las reservas de agua. Además y un crecimiento importante en la demanda de energía para responder a las emergencias.

Figura 2: Incremento de temperatura en un siglo según el IPCC
• Lluvias más intensas. Estas producen aumento en las inundaciones de algunas regiones, lo que a su vez ocasiona mayores deslizamientos de tierras, avalanchas e importantes variaciones regionales.

Figura 3. Los cambios en las precipitaciones sobre América Central y del Sur de las simulaciones MMD-A1B. Media anual de la precipitación  variable entre los años 1980 a 1999 y 2080 a 2099, con un promedio de más de 21 modelos usados. Muestra una disminución de precipitación media en el norte de Sudamérica, cerca de la costa del Caribe, así como sobre una gran parte del norte de Brasil, Chile y la Patagonia, mientras que se prevé que aumente en Colombia, Ecuador y Perú, alrededor del ecuador y en el sudeste de América del Sur. IPCC

Caso Colombia

Hechos  que afectan la producción agricultural en Colombia.

 El sector agrícola en Colombia es una de las principales fuentes de economía del país, por esta razón es necesario tener control sobre cultivos, producciones y tener la mente clara en cuanto a nuevas oportunidades de implementación de sistemas de respuesta inmediata ante las amenazas climáticas,  Esto se reflejo durante las epocas invernales anteriores ocasionando grandes perdidas en areas productoras, incidiendo directamente en el incremento del costo de adquisicion, perdida de inversion y un retraso  economico para el pais.

El Ministerio de Agricultura reporta que el número de hectáreas dedicadas a la agricultura y la ganadería que están inundadas asciende a 380 mil. A esto se suma la pérdida de más de 30 mil semovientes y el traslado súbito de más de 1.3 millones de animales. También se registra una pérdida importante de especies menores. En algunos municipios se reportan pérdidas hasta del 100% en cultivos de auto subsistencia. . En las zonas urbanas se registra la pérdida de empleos de jornaleros y mujeres dedicadas a labores domésticas, así como de las personas que debieron hacer frente a la reubicación de sus familias. La actual afectación en cultivos tendrá un impacto en el periodo de siembra del primer semestre de 2011 por la escasez de semillas e insumos agrícolas. Segun OCHA 2010 (Oficina de las naciones unidas para la coordinación de  asuntos humanitarios)

En cuanto a la desertificación se estableció que 193.510 Km2, 16.95 % del territorio nacional, se encuentra afectado por este fenómeno. 78.9% de las zonas secas del país presentan diferentes niveles de desertificación, derivados principalmente de la erosión y salinización, añadiendo el crecimiento exponencial anual que se presenta debido a las incidencias climáticas y de manejo inadecuado de la tierra.

Con relación a la compactación que posibilita potencial mente la retención de agua y el desarrollo radicular se determinó que aproximadamente 74% del territorio nacional es susceptible a esta problemática, presentándose especialmente en los valles interandinos, el Caribe y la Orinoquia. Según: tercer informe nacional de implementación de la convención de naciones unidas de lucha contra la desertificación.

Enfoques de adaptación y gestión de riesgos de desastres para reducir y gestionar los riesgos de un clima variable. IPCC

Generar modelos, precisar un clima futuro con zonas posiblemente afectadas y publicar, no es suficiente para tomar medidas de adaptación a las variabilidades de los fenómenos climáticos que suceden a corto y mediano plazo, mas aun cuando las políticas están levemente fortalecidas, falta compromiso de los actores politicos e institucionales, prioridad de inversion, falta alianzas con el sector público, privado y académico para la implementación de la medida, un cambio de estos paradigmas con actores mas comprometidos, minimizaria el riesgo de pérdida de cobertura agricultural asegurando un futuro para la prosperidad alimentaria.

Una buena estrategia que se requiere implementar es:

• Generar un mapa de inundaciones históricas registradas y futuras en base a la frecuencia de precipitaciones futuras, teniendo en cuenta las anomalías climáticas que posee el IDEAM y NOAA.

•  Identificar Zonas desertificadas y caracterización de índices de temperatura alta según el histórico registrado, para registrar lugares con futuro potencial de vulnerabilidad.

• Caracterización socioeconómica de la demografía para identificar las posibilidades de respuesta de los principales productores vulnerables.

• Mapa de caracterización de suelos e identificar los suelos en zonas de alta retención de fluidos para la ubicación lugares con riesgos de erosión, inundación y deslizamientos.

•  Generación de planes de emergencia para la adaptación temprana por medio de programas de capacitación; con ello se espera una creación de Sistemas de drenajes de emergencia, dotación de equipos tecnológicos a  productores vulnerables y sistemas de almacenamiento de agua para proveer sistemas de irrigación a  cultivos afectados en épocas de sequia.

Una buena estrategia basada en lineamientos de colaboración en equipos de trabajo de diferentes instituciones como CIAT, IDEAM, IGAC y MADR puede fortalecer las políticas entre instituciones multisectoriales, generando datos reales, constantes y actuales a través de diferentes  metodologías que conllevan a la toma de decisiones de estrategias para la adaptación frente a los eventos extremos del cambio climático que se esperan para el país.

Angela Merkel said on Friday, in an address to the German Parliament, that “marathon runners often tell you that [the race] gets particularly tough after 35km. But they also say that the whole distance can be completed if you are fully aware at the start of what you are about to do. It’s not the one who starts quickest who is necessarily the most successful, but the one who respects the whole feat.”

Merkel made these comments reflecting on the slow progress being made to tackle the Eurozone debt crisis, but the analogy applies to the climate discussions leading up to Durban. The relative, but unbinding success of COP 16 in Cancun last December has succeeded in fueling another round of high expectations in Durban – expectations that seem to ignore the realities of our global economy and international community.

The major topic of debate, for the sake of variety, is the parties’ ability to arrive at a legally binding agreement on the Bali Action Plan, Cancun Agreements or the future of the Kyoto Protocol. Also weighing in heavily in Durban, as it did in Copenhagen and Cancun, is the refueled discussion of who should be responsible for tackling emissions given the developed world’s historical responsibility and the emerging economies’ increasing contribution to GHGs.

While it seems the discussion at Durban will be firmly fixed on the structure of an agreement, the content will yet again take a back seat. Two major themes, agriculture and adaptation, remain in need the kind of profound attention that only a world stage like Durban can provide. But with the media and negotiators fixated on a “binding way or the highway” mentality, these issues stand to fall victim to a premature, incomplete agreement – a false-start if you will.

How about a seat at the table?
Agriculture’s side-lined position in climate change negotiations represents one of the most profound paradoxes in modern international relations. The sector is home to our world’s most climate-vulnerable populations according to any assessment criteria – geographic, social or environmental. And the lessons we can learn from agriculture, if we’d only engage in the conversation, are seemingly endless.

The succes that the Climate-smart agriculture movement has had in bringing together adaptation and mitigation realms is a lesson that needs sharing at Durban

Small-scale farmers, for example, are the epitome of “think globally, act locally”, as their success or failure has consequences on nearly all sectors of the national and global economy, with food security firmly planted in the foundations of our development. Our continued growth depends on their ability to take appropriate actions in the face of climate change, one acre at a time. Policy solutions that succeed for such an intensely localized sector can most certainly serve as a model for others. We as an international community have a responsibility to provide a policy environment that best enables that bottom-up agricultural revolution to occur. This can only be achieved if agriculture has a legitimate seat at the table.

 
Agriculture also provides an important example of how adaptation and mitigation can be implemented simultaneously; this in contrast to our tendency to force sometimes artificial distinctions between the two. The recent momentum of climate- smart agriculture is a testament to the success that mitigating practices, such as planting trees or sustainable intensification, can have in bringing about valuable co-benefits such as improved yields and diversification (adaptation through mitigation). By placing strong emphasis on the improvements in farming practices that are happening immediately via mitigation efforts, the conversation becomes less about obligations and more about the value in making climate-smart investments; a lesson the negotiators in Durban shouldn’t take lightly.

Talk about Adaptation
Climate negotiations have traditionally centered on mitigation and legally binding emissions targets. In Copenhagen and Cancun, however, we saw evidence of a rejuvenated adaptation movement taking shape. While the increased interest in adaptation (as well as technology transfer, climate financing, and transparency – also emerging from COP15/16) should be welcomed, it is important that the discourse surrounding adaptation in Durban presents it in an appropriate light.

Former Ireland president and ex-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Dr Mary Robinson, delivering the keynote address at the Agriculture & Rural Development Day side event in Durban

In previous COPs, adaptation has often been considered the cost of failed mitigation attempts – an unfortunate last ditch effort born out of our inability to reach consensus at the negotiating table. Viewing adaptation as “admitting defeat” can be damaging to global perceptions of both mitigation and adaptation. It assumes (falsely) total failure in negotiations, undermines important, commendable mitigating activities and does not properly reflect the complexity of achieving international top-level consensus on an inherently multi-level problem.

 
See the United States’ Delegation head in Durban, Dr. Jonathon Pershing, refer to the “unfortunate” need to develop an adaptation framework.

 
Conversely, viewing adaptation as a truly parallel, complementary climate change response track to mitigation recognizes the historical role of adaptation (we’ve been adapting for millennia – the difference being that today we have better decision-making tools and far greater urgency) and, perhaps more importantly, allows us to properly address climate change’s exacerbating effect on existing development challenges**. The reality is that we will face unavoidable impacts of climate change whether a legally binding document is reached today, or even a decade ago. To save lives, adaptation needs to be firmly centered on the Durban agenda.

 
**The concept of climate fund ‘additionally’ must be reaffirmed in Durban negotiations. One major slipping in point in Copenhagen and Cancun was the emerging possibility that developed countries could draw off funds from other voluntary coffers like official development assistance (ODA) to meet their Green Climate Fund pledges. To make serious strides towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), climate change adaptation funds will need to go above and beyond existing assistance.

Breaking the cycle
To deny agriculture the attention it deserves, and to fail to appreciate adaptation for what it truly is – both because of the inherent complexities in integrating them in to a tidy, legally binding package – speaks to the dangers, and oversights, that result from choosing structure over content. We are in but the first few kilometers of a legally binding marathon and, as Merkel suggests, we’ll all benefit from “respecting the whole feat”. To classify the negotiations success with “legally binding” and its failure with “anything else” ignores the realities of this complex, mulit-level, “wicked” problem.

 
Durban and COP is as much about changing minds as it is about building political agreements. Let’s make an effort to break this cycle of unreasonable expectations and failure, and focus on the issues at hand. Slow and steady wins the race.

Scientific experts outline concrete steps toward a sustainable global food system

COPENHAGEN (16 November 2011) — In the lead up to UN global climate talks in Durban, South Africa later this month, an independent global commission of eminent scientists today released a set of concrete recommendations to policy makers on how to achieve food security in the face of climate change. Based on a thorough review of existing research, the commissioners urged immediate, coordinated action toward transforming the food system to meet current and future threats to food security and environmental sustainability.

The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change’s “Summary for Policy Makers” outlines crucial policy responses to the global challenge of feeding a world confronted by climate change, population growth, poverty, food price spikes and degraded ecosystems. The seven high-level recommendations include significantly raising the level of global investment in sustainable agriculture and food systems in the next decade; sustainably intensifying agricultural production on the existing land base while reducing greenhouse gas emissions; and reducing losses and waste in the food system.

Prof. Sir John Beddington, Chair of the Commission, summed up the challenge: “It’s about reorienting the whole global food system – not just agricultural production, and not just in developing countries. We need a socially equitable, global approach to produce the funding, policy, management and regional initiatives that will deliver nutrition, income and climate benefits for all.”

In making their recommendations, the Commissioners cited the interconnected relationship between agriculture and the environment. As populations grow to upwards of 9 billion people, so will demand for food, fuel and feed crops. This could put many agricultural systems under immense stress and result in further depletion of soil fertility, biodiversity and water resources and increase greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, according to the Commission.

The release of the Commission’s “Summary for Policy Makers” was timed to inform pivotal, upcoming meetings on climate change, including the UN climate conference in Durban, South Africa from November 28 to December 9 and the Rio+20 Earth Summit next year. “Efforts to alleviate the worst effects of climate change cannot succeed without simultaneously addressing the crises in global agriculture and the food system,” said Dr Bruce Campbell, director of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, which convened the independent commission in February 2011. “The commission’s invaluable contribution is to provide scientists and policy makers with the most authoritative, evidence-based action steps to date to achieve global food security.” The Commission’s detailed final report will be issued in 2012.

The Commission brings together senior natural and social scientists working in agriculture, climate, food and nutrition, economics and natural resources from Australia, Brazil, Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, France, Kenya, India, Mexico, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States and Vietnam.

Creating a safe operating space for people on this planet

“There is a strong risk we will live on a food-insecure planet in the future,” said Commissioner Dr Marion Guillou, President of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), “and we need to reshape food access and consumption patterns to ensure basic nutritional needs will be met.” Today, a billion people are malnourished while millions suffer from chronic disease due to over-consumption. World population will grow to an estimated 9 billion by 2050 and diets are shifting towards higher consumption of calories, fats and animal products. Global demand is growing for food, fodder and bioenergy crops, and food prices are rising.

“Climate change is already causing more extreme weather events, such as high temperatures, droughts and floods, and will particularly harm those people who already live on the brink of hunger and malnutrition,” said Commissioner Professor Tekalign Mamo, Advisor to the Ethiopian Minister of Agriculture. “Food insecurity produces widespread human suffering, even in the world’s wealthiest countries, as well as political and economic instability, so it is clear the status quo is not an option.”

Investment, innovation and empowerment

The Commission reviewed the scientific evidence base to develop a package of solutions that address how food is produced, distributed and consumed. Their recommendations support climate-resilient agricultural production, efficient resource use, low-waste supply chains, adequate nutrition and healthy eating choices that, together, will constitute a sustainable food system.

The “Summary for Policy Makers” presents concrete, urgent actions to be implemented simultaneously by a constellation of governments, international institutions, investors, agricultural producers, consumers, food companies and researchers. Recommended tactics range from shifting economic incentives and making ‘fast start’ funds available for agriculture to strengthening land rights and building transparency in food markets.

“There is no one-size-fits-all solution,” said Commission Vice-Chair Dr Mohammed Asaduzzaman, Research Director at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, “but we know that success depends on a combination of investment, innovation and deliberate effort to empower the world’s most vulnerable populations.” The Commissioners called for significantly raising the level of global investment in sustainable agriculture and food systems in the next decade.

Efficiency throughout food supply chains

“Our global system wastes food, reducing efficiency in agricultural productivity,” according to the Australian Commissioner Dr Megan Clark, Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). For example, roughly one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted across the global food system. In addition, land clearing and inefficient use of fertilizers and organic residues make agriculture the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas pollution on the planet. “Investments to increase efficiencies in agriculture and supply chains while also mitigating greenhouse gas emissions are critical for economic and environmental health and will realise important benefits to the global food system,” she said.

“An estimated 12 million hectares of agricultural land – and their potential for producing 20 million tonnes of grain – are lost each year to land degradation,” explained Commissioner Professor Lin Erda, Director of the Research Centre of Agriculture and Climate Change at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. “At the same time, many regions have large gaps between potential and actual crop yields.”

The Commission notes the importance of sustainably intensifying agricultural production on existing land – including improving supporting infrastructure and restoring degraded ecosystems – while reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. “Sustainable intensification is essential,” said South African Commissioner Professor Bob Scholes of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), “and will be most successful at reducing greenhouse gas emissions if we improve land tenure and have strong land-use planning in place to protect forests, wetlands and other critical remaining natural ecosystems.”

Supporting the most vulnerable

A large section of the human population is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events and food price volatility. Severe food insecurity can lead to humanitarian crises such as the current situation in the Horn of Africa. Specific recommendations to assist vulnerable populations include insurance against climate shocks, strategies to moderate food price fluctuations and safety net programs. Education, health and nutrition programs provide much needed pathways out of food insecurity.

“Building resilience to climate change must be deeply rooted in social systems beyond agriculture,” said the Commissioner Dr Rita Sharma, Secretary of India’s National Advisory Council. In India, for example, a program to guarantee rural employment is being used as a strategy to boost income and therefore reduce vulnerability.

“Global donors can help promote better climate change risk management through a more coordinated, multi-benefit approach,” said Mexican Commissioner Dr Adrian Fernández Bremauntz, Senior Consultant at the ClimateWorks Foundation. The Commission calls for national and international agricultural development policies to prioritise boosting productive assets and infrastructure.

Better information for integrated decision-making

“We are already in the business of managing significant risk and navigating trade-offs,” said U.S. Commissioner Professor Molly Jahn of the University of Madison-Wisconsin. “Agricultural greenhouse emissions are undeniably a significant issue. We need to innovate approaches to deal with this, but not at the expense of food production by poor farmers today.” The Commission highlights the importance of improved monitoring and modelling to support integrated decision-making for economic growth, agricultural productivity, poverty reduction and long-term environmental sustainability.

“If we are armed with real-time, spatially explicit information about land uses, markets and human populations, we can do a much better job of meeting our needs and taking care of the planet,” said Commissioner Dr Carlos Nobre of the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. “This means better capacity to forecast crises as well as testing specific interventions and scaling up the ones that work.”

Policy kick-start

At the same time, global and national policies need to increase the focus on sustainable agriculture and continue the momentum that has built on food security in order to kick-start a transformation of the whole food system. “Agriculture and food security tend to fall between the cracks of global policy making,” explained the Kenyan Commissioner Professor Judi Wakhungu, Executive Director of the African Center for Technology Studies (ACTS). The Commission points out the need for higher importance of agriculture in discussions concerning the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and at the Rio+20 Earth Summit to be held in Brazil in June 2012.

Commissioners stress the need for multiyear commitments of financial and technical assistance to help agricultural producers build resilience to climate variability and improve their livelihoods, while contributing to climate change mitigation. Commissioner Dr Nguyen Van Bo, President of the Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Science said, “Policies and finance streams must engage and empower poor rural farmers to improve yields and incomes on existing land bases without new environmental impacts.”

The Commission’s final report, upon which the recommendations are based, will be released early in 2012. The Commission will share its recommendations at the upcoming Agriculture and Rural Development Day in Durban, South Africa and other policy forums throughout 2012.

Visit the Commission website for the full report and additional resources. 

The Commission’s Action points

(Full details elaborated in “Summary for Policy Makers” document at http://www.ccafs.cgiar.org/commission)

1. Integrate food security and sustainable agriculture into global and national policies
2. Significantly raise the level of global investment in sustainable agriculture and food systems in the next decade
3. Sustainably intensify agricultural production while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other negative environmental impacts of agriculture
4. Target populations and sectors that are most vulnerable to climate change and food insecurity
5. Reshape food access and consumption patterns to ensure basic nutritional needs are met and to foster healthy and sustainable eating habits worldwide
6. Reduce loss and waste in food systems, particularly from infrastructure, farming practices, processing, distribution and household habits
7. Create comprehensive, shared, integrated information systems that encompass human and ecological dimensions

Press releases in other languages

• Assurer la securité alimentaire dans un contexte de changement climatique : une Commission internationale donne la marche à suivre [FR]
• Comision mundial traza el camino para lograr la seguridad alimentaria ante el cambio climatico [ES]

Key to enabling adaptation are therefore appropriate policies for facilitating germplasm exchange, and that is where the CGRFA come in.  This week they’ll be discussing these issues and hopefully we can see the emergence of international and national policy that supports adaptation through facilitated access to useful materials between countries.

You can see a video interview where we discuss some of the issues, and also the presentations we made below.  The CCAFS blog made a nice summary (thanks to guest blogger Jeremy), Luigi broke the story while it was happening here, and IISD did a summary report on the Special Information Seminar here.

However, several questions remain unresolved such as: to what extent is the cut to be done? when will the emissions cut be definitely in place? how is the yearly fund money going to be distributed? Several say that despite the agreement is a big step, it does not prevent temperatures from rising 4C or beyond, and here’s a plausible future to agriculture under a 4C warming.

Meanwhile, negotiations cannot be delayed and in the short term, dates and emission peaks need to be agreed. Further, adaptation processes need to be properly guided and funded. In this respect, global initiatives such as CGIAR’s Consortium Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) are wise initiatives that can aid to the development and implementation of adaption plans, to vulnerability diagnosis, and to the proper and transparent allocation of funds for adaption. But at the same time, local partners need to be involved in the processes and communication pathways need to be optimised.

In view of the next big release (the Fifth Assessment Report), the apparent failure of the last Conference of Parties at Copenhagen, there have been several allegations, discussions, judgments, press releases and blog posts on a number of errors and issues that might be present within the 2007 report, including the whole e-mail hacking war. Internal investigations to both IPCC and CRU, which we all hope will get to a solution are being carried out.

Prof. Robert T. Watson, former chair of the IPCC, and Prof. Roger A. Pielke, Jr. speak about what the future of the IPCC should be. While Watson supports the idea that there is no reason to lose the trust in IPCC, Pielke insists that the IPCC needs new control and error-handling mechanisms. The latter author has been subjected to contribution rejections from the IPCC.

They agree, nevertheless, in that the IPCC needs some adjustments, and that these need to be implemented as soon as possible if trust in the organism is to be re-gained worldwide. These adjustments include a more open review and feedback process, in which (non-IPCC related) scientists can contribute to the climate change science in a more “open” process.

This is nothing new, though, but the fact that there are some errors (horrendous errors, I must clarify) in the IPCC’s last report, doesn’t mean that anthropogenic-related emissions do not cause the so-called greenhouse effect, and moreover, it doesn’t mean we do not need to do anything under the context of climate change. Political orientations tend to disclose the real facts, but we need to keep focused on what really matters: the science, the transparency and the truth.