A report, released at the Planet Under Pressure conference in London yesterday, has called for major changes in global agriculture in order for people around the world to face up to climate change and poverty. The report identifies seven steps that can be taken by policy makers towards more “climate smart” agriculture.

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The central messages of the report, Achieving Food Security in the Face of Climate Change, produced by the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, are calls for drastic reduction in waste and greenhouse gas emissions. The report examines ways to ensure enough people are fed in a world where one billion people are chronically hungry, another billion are suffering the effects of overeating and where food prices and the global population are set to rise rapidly.

The commission, made up of scientific leaders from thirteen countries, compiled its report over a year in an attempt to enable policy makers to deal with the threats presented by climate change, population growth, poverty, food price spikes and degraded ecosystems in the run up to the Rio +20 summit in June.

It has been estimated that between a third and one half of all food produced around the world is wasted or lost; the majority of this is from post-harvest losses resulting from inadequate storage. Furthermore, the effects of intensive farming and climate change are resulting in the loss of 12 million hectares each year to land degradation.

According to the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, land clearing and inefficient practices have made agriculture the largest source of greenhouse gas pollution on the planet.

In response to this, commissioners suggest changes to policy, finance, agriculture, development aid, diet choices and food waste as well as revitalized investment in the knowledge systems to support these changes as a means of ensuring the Rio +20 resolutions are a success. Its recommendations include raising the level of investment into sustainable agriculture and food systems over the next decade

The commission which produced the report was chaired by UK government chief scientific advisor Professor John Beddington, who has been criticised for adopting a ‘business as usual’ approach to global problems in the past. Beddington’s calls for the rapid adoption of GM technology have been widely criticised as the technology is, for the most part, subject to intellectual property laws and anti-poverty campaigners have claimed that, amongst concerns over environmental and cultural impacts, its use in many regions will result in deepening poverty, benefitting only transnational corporations who hold the patents.

Beddington’s Foresight report, which has been influential in forming government policy in the UK, was slammed by World Food Prize-winner Professor Hans Herren, who advocates agroecological solutions to many of the problems caused by climate change. Professor Herren condemned the report as existing solely to justify the prevailing “failed industrial model of farming” and promote GM.

Experts push for meaningful change

Nevertheless, Professor Judi Wakhungu, executive director of the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), commented on the commission’s report, “We were charged with harvesting the wealth of scientific knowledge and practical solutions that have been accumulated by recent assessment reports on food security and climate change. Together, we carefully distilled the seven most important ways for policy makers to make global food security and climate stabilization a reality.” 

As well as promoting novel ideas for achieving its steps towards greater sustainability, the commissioners identified several existing systems, which they feel represent good transitioning measures, such no-till rice farming in Vietnam, which captures carbon, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving soil quality, and moves to give women secure land ownership in a number of southern African countries.

The report calls for sustainable intensification, a concept championed by Beddington’s Foresight report, to raise yields whilst impacting less. The concept, which has been criticised as being so loosely defined as to mean ‘all things to all people’ or even as being paradoxical, is a means of increasing output from the same area of land, whilst reducing inputs and negative environmental impacts and boosting environmental services, according to the Royal Society.

The commission’s report cites recent evidence that closing the gap between potential and actual yields for 16 major crops could increase productivity by more than 50 percent. “To produce enough food for our rapidly growing population, much greater investment is needed to dramatically increase agricultural yields now and in the long-term,” explained Commissioner Dr. Nguyen Van Bo, president of the Viet Nam Academy of Agricultural Science.

In addition to sustainable intensification and increased investment in research, the scientists also called for more efficient measures to avoid excess water or fertiliser use, which results in pollution, can reduce yields, and depletes scarce resources.

Although its proposed solutions all remain extremely market-friendly, even the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change admitted that “‘Business as usual’ in our globally interconnected food system will not bring us food security or environmental sustainability.”

The policy recommendations laid out in the report are:

• food security and sustainable agriculture must be integrated into national and global policy
• food habits must be addressed; eating reasonable amounts in sustainable consumption patterns and meeting nutritional needs is key
• increase global investment in sustainable agriculture over the next decade.
• implement specific programmes to assist populations in regions vulnerable to the effects of climate change
• reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other negative environmental impacts
• reduce waste from agricultural sector and from food chain
• introduce a comprehensive, shared and integrated information system, taking into account human and ecological dimensions

The report is available here

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