Member: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) ,
Sep 3, 2012 - Sep 7, 2012
The 2nd Global Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change will be held from 3 to 7 September 2012 in Hanoi, Viet Nam and will include a high level session on 6 September. Co-organized by Viet Nam and the Netherlands, in close collaboration with other partners, including FAO and the World Bank, the conference will allow global leaders, practitioners, scientists, civil society and the private sector to share experiences and demonstrate how early action on Climate-Smart Agriculture can act as a driver of green growth. Learn more >>
Key Objectives of the Conference are:
- Determine effective strategies and practices to scale-up the implementation of Climate-smart Agriculture1 (CSA) as a driver of sustainable development and green growth and share information, experiences and good practices to this end among public, private and civil society stakeholders;
- Mainstream CSA within broader development goals;
- Address drivers and constraints of CSA development, with a particular focus on priorities for improving the enabling environment and for increasing private investment in agriculture and rural development at all levels and scales through the value chain;
- Promote a landscape approach, including enhancing linkages between agriculture and forestry;
- Take stock of implementation of CSA since November 2010.
Climate-smart agriculture is agriculture that sustainably increases productivity, resilience (adaptation), reduces /removes greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation), and enhances achievement of national food security and development goals. (Climate-Smart Agriculture: Policies, Practices, and financing for food security, adaptation and mitigation, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, 2010.)
The results of this 2nd Global Conference will contribute to the next round of UN climate-change negotiations (Doha, Qatar, November 2012. The conference has a unique opportunity to draw from the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development and support the implementation of the Rio outcomes.
Background
In November 2010, the first Global Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change in The Hague, the Netherlands brought together the agendas of agriculture, food security and climate change. This meeting was informed by a preparatory meeting focusing on Africa that was organized by the African Union Commission and the government of Ethiopia in September 2010. These government led multistakeholder initiatives complemented other relevant global and regional meetings.
The themes of this first global conference were:
I. Agriculture, food security and climate change: framing the issue and taking stock of innovations
II. Scaling up replicable models of climate change-smart agriculture: opportunities and challenges
III. Mobilizing investments from all sources for a transformational change to climate-smart agriculture
IV. A road map for action
The Roadmap for Action was developed as a 'living document' to mobilize action for achieving climate-smart agriculture as a means to enhance sustainable productivity and incomes, resilience to climate change and carbon sequestration.
The Roadmap stressed the need for scaled-up action now and into the future and called-upon partners to implement and further develop the roadmap, individually and collectively within a broad informal partnership between all stakeholders.
The second Global Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change, will take stock of developments over the last year, including the implementation of the Roadmap for Action. Furthermore, it will set new and more concrete priorities for action while demonstrating early action on CSA as a driver for green growth.
Recent developments
The Viet Nam Conference will build on the outcomes of several conferences and events which have taken place since the initial Conference.
a) The African Ministerial Conference on Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA)
This conference was hosted by the Government of the Republic of South Africa and co-organized by the African Union Commission, FAO and the World Bank in Johannesburg, South Africa in September 2011. Concrete actions were identified for implementation, especially for the African region.
During this meeting, African agriculture ministers called for using climate-smart agricultural practices a to sustainably increase agricultural productivity and build resilience to environmental pressures while at the same time helping farmers adapt to climate change while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The objectives of the conference were to share leadership perspectives, explore challenges, and grasp new opportunities for climate‐smart agriculture in Africa. Discussions focused on learning from country strategies, financing climate-smart agriculture, and agriculture within the UN climate negotiations.
b) The Global Science Conference on Climate-Smart Agriculture
This conference was hosted by Wageningen University and Research Centre, co-organized by The Government of the Netherlands, FAO and the World Bank in Ede, The Netherlands in October 2011. The Wageningen Science conference focused on three themes:
- Sustainable intensification and climate-smart solutions – enhancing food production while reducing greenhouse gas emissions;
- Overcoming the barriers to climate-smart agriculture;
- Managing volatility and risks – technical and social-economic options for climate-smart risk management
The conference was supported by a range of partners, including the CGIAR Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security program (CCAFS), the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN).
The second Global Science Conference on Climate-Smart Agriculture will be hosted by UC Davis, California, US, in October 2012.
c) UNFCCC CoP17 in Durban
The 17th Conference of the Parties under the climate change Convention, that was hosted by South-Africa in December 2011, concluded with the Durban platform and called upon the inclusion of agriculture as part of the solution to climate change impacts. For the first time agriculture was a political issue in this context. An exchange of views on issues regarding agriculture in SBSTA was included in the final decision of the Ad-Hoc Working group on Long-Term Cooperative Action, subsequently discussed in SBSTA in Bonn in May 2012.
The Challenge
How to feed 9 billion people in 2050 is one of the biggest challenges of our era. Global food production must rise by at least 70 percent in 2050. Without strong adaptation and mitigation measures climate change will reduce food crop yields 16 percent worldwide and by 28 percent in Africa over the next fifty years. It is likely that price and yield volatility will continue to rise as extreme weather continues, further impacting livelihoods and putting food security at risk.
We can no longer look at food security, poverty, climate change and environmental sustainability separately. Climate-Smart Agriculture is a driver of green growth. The world needs a form of growth that is socially and environmentally sustainable and that takes natural resource limits and climate change into account. Green and inclusive growth policies in the agricultural sector need to be fully integrated into countries' overall development strategies. But these issues are not the exclusive concerns of government. Now, more than ever, the effort to shift growth paths requires the engagement and participation of all parts of society. For this to happen better and more comprehensive empirical evidence is needed on the economics of the CSA in different farming systems and countries. Many countries in Asia and other parts of the world are moving towards green growth paths already.
The role of the private sector in driving the green, inclusive growth agenda needs to be emphasized. Sound public policies and investments in the agricultural sector are central but are not enough. The private sector is the engine of innovative solutions and the main channel and, therefore, will be specifically targeted as a contributor to the Viet Nam conference. Resource mobilization for agriculture should be stepped up in view of the sector's fundamental role in a more sustainable economy. The conference therefore will in particular seek participation of the private sector at all levels.
Main themes of the Conference
a. Climate-Smart Agriculture: A Driver for Green Growth
CSA is a core part of the broader development agenda for agriculture, which is about meeting the needs of people for food, fuel, timber and fiber and contributing to economic development and poverty reduction and food security while maintaining and enhancing the productivity and resilience of natural ecosystem functions. Climate-smart agriculture includes proven practical techniques such as mulching, intercropping, zero tillage, agro forestry, improved grazing and water management, as well as innovative practices such as better weather forecasting, more resilient food crops and risk insurance and incorporating broad landscape management into production systems.
Green and inclusive growth is climate-resilient, water-smart, land-saving, energy-efficient and reliant on diverse renewable energy sources. It also generates decent jobs and improves livelihoods across a diverse set of productive and service sectors. It is underpinned by properly valued natural capital, the value of which is fully integrated into countries' systems of national accounts. Green and inclusive growth paths factor environmental considerations into government policies and business decisions, placing sustainable natural resource management – with its benefits flowing to people – at the heart of future development and growth.
b. Early Action Critical for Success
Increased collaboration will enable the international community to build on existing successes and address global challenges. It is critical to expand information and knowledge exchange, establish early action plans to identify and scale up best practice.
Therefore during the 2nd Global Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change, we have to make steps forward to
- Call on developed countries and other partners, to support the implementation and scaling-up of early action programmes, including best practices and technologies in climate-smart agriculture and food security, through regional, sub-regional and national programmes and institutions as a matter of priority
- Emphasis the importance of government-led partnerships with non-state agencies in designing strategies, policies and appropriate market based approaches to promote climate-smart agriculture
- Encourage countries to leverage private sector investments through public private partnerships in support of climate-smart agriculture
- Urge countries to invest in research, technology and information dissemination to facilitate the adaptation and application of climate-smart agriculture
c. Mainstreaming into a broader landscape approach
Climate-smart agriculture gives the basis for a broader landscape approach, in particular through linking land, agriculture and sustainable forest management to ensure that synergies are properly captured. The nexus of agriculture and forests (REDD+ and sustainable forest management) will be further explored during the conference.
Deforestation and forest degradation in many parts of the world are largely driven by agriculture. Therefore, addressing linkages between REDD+, sustainable forest management and agriculture is a must. Better coordinated and intersectoral policies would ensure that food production and forestry do not compete for natural resources. A way forward is using a landscape approach that would promote high carbon stock land uses in forests and in agricultural areas, and would contribute to halting both deforestation and forest degradation while meeting future demands for food and nutrition.
Priority activities
Priority activities that will be highlighted during the conference in Viet Nam, include also:
- identifying new financing opportunities and expanding research, training and extension
- increasing and prioritizing private sector investments and involvement in implementation via public-private partnerships and
- risk management and measurement methodologies.
High-level commitment and outreach
A high-level ministerial meeting will be convened on 6 September. The outcome of the 2nd Global Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change, in Hanoi will contribute and link to a variety of international processes, in particular to the Rio +20 follow-up process and partnerships, the work of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), as well as the ongoing climate change negotiations under UNFCCC.
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1 Agriculture includes crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture
PUBLICATIONS
There are no publications for this event.
