Cereal-based farming systems must join the transition to sustainable agriculture if they are to maintain production of staple crops in the face of a growing population and a changing climate, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. The Rome-based organisation held a meeting before Christmas with leading crop production specialists.

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FAO estimates that over the next 35 years farmers will need to increase the annual production of maize, rice and wheat to 3 billion tonnes, or half a billion tonnes more than 2013's record combined harvests.

They will need to do that with less water, fossil fuel and agrochemicals, on farmland that has been widely degraded by decades of intensive crop production, and in the face of droughts, new pest and disease threats, and extreme weather events provoked by climate change.

Experts at the meeting said that that challenge could only be met with eco-friendly agriculture that achieves higher productivity while conserving natural resources, adapting to climate change, and, crucially, that contains a social dimension. Successful strategies must also deliver benefits to the world's 500 million small-scale family farms; family farmers are often those who suffer most from food poverty.

Speakers said Maize, rice and wheat provide 50 percent of the planet's dietary energy supply. What is more, studies have shown these staple cereal crops are especially vulnerable to the various impacts of human driven climate change, from unpredictable weather (such as shifting rainfall patterns), to higher average temperatures and concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

According to FAO, climate trends since 1980 have reduced the annual global maize harvest by an estimated 23 million tonnes and the wheat harvest by 33 million tonnes. Green Revolution cereal yield increases – once averaging a spectacular 3 percent a year – have fallen to around 1 percent since 2000, plateauing or dropping off in many areas where soils are depleted and water resources are overused.

In Asia, the degradation of soils and the buildup of toxins in intensive paddy systems have raised concerns that the slowdown in yield growth reflects a deteriorating crop-growing environment.

FAO officials and other delegates at the meeting agreed that "Agriculture can no longer rely on input-intensive [packages] to increase crop production." FAO Director General José Graziano Da Silva delivered the same message in high profile addresses earlier in the year.  

The UN Organisation advocates what it calls "Save and Grow" practices, which aim to keep soil healthy, integrate crop, tree and animal production, use water far more efficiently, and protect crops with integrated pest management.

In September, FAO launched its Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture, which the organisation hopes will be instrumental in leading the transition to more sustainable farming practices. However, sustainable farm and civil society groups have expressed grave reservations that the Alliance may not carry the same commitments to the social and ecological aspects of agricultural development as other established schools of thought, such as agroecology – which has been advocated by the UN's special rapporteurs on the right to food.

Examples of ecosystem-based farming

Even so, papers were presented at the FAO meeting in December, which provided an inventory of proven ecosystem-based farming technologies and practices, including:

• In Viet Nam, more than a million small-scale farmers have adopted the System of Rice Intensification, which produces high yields using less fertilizer, water and seed than conventional irrigated rice
• In China, planting genetically diverse rice varieties in the same field has cut fungal disease incidence so significantly, compared to monocropped rice, that many farmers were able to stop spraying fungicide
• In southern India, site-specific nutrient management, which matches nitrogen inputs to plants' real needs, has reduced fertilizer applications and costs, while increasing wheat yields by 40 percent
• The elimination of soil tillage on wheat land in central Morocco cut water runoff volume by 30 percent and sediment loss by 70 percent, leading to increased water holding capacity that boosts crop productivity in drier seasons.
• In Zimbabwe, conservation agriculture has helped smallholder farmers produce up to eight times more maize per hectare than the national average.
• Farmers in Zambia grow an acacia tree, Faidherbia albida, near maize fields and use its nitrogen-rich leaves as natural fertilizer and a protective mulch during the rainy season, resulting in a threefold increase in yields.

The challenge facing policymakers, FAO officials maintain, is to accelerate the adoption of genuinely sustainable farming systems. They reiterated that this includes driving support for smallholder farmers, to adapt ecosystem-based farming practices to local conditions. This, they say, will require changes to national policies in a range of areas, improved knowledge sharing facilities such as farmers' field schools, and a show of political will – from professional politicians and people on the ground.