LONDON (28 March 2012) — Nearly one billion people in the world are
undernourished, while millions suffer from chronic disease due to
excess food consumption. Global demand is growing for agricultural
products and food prices are rising, yet roughly one-third of food
produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. Climate change
threatens more frequent drought, flooding and pest outbreaks, and the
world loses 12 million hectares of agricultural land each year to land
degradation. Land clearing and inefficient practices make agriculture
the largest source of greenhouse gas pollution on the planet.
To address these alarming patterns, an independent commission of
scientific leaders from 13 countries released today a detailed set of
recommendations to policy makers on how to achieve food security in
the face of climate change. In their report, the Commission on
Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change proposes specific policy
responses to the global challenge of feeding a world confronted by
climate change, population growth, poverty, food price spikes and
degraded ecosystems. The report highlights specific opportunities
under the mandates of the Rio+20 Earth Summit, the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Group of 20
(G20) nations.
“Food insecurity and climate change are already inhibiting human
well-being and economic growth throughout the world and these problems
are poised to accelerate,” said Sir John Beddington, chair of the
Commission. “Decisive policy action is required if we are to preserve
the planet’s capacity to produce adequate food in the future.” The
report was released at the Planet Under Pressure conference where
scientists from around the world are honing solutions for global
sustainability challenges targeted to the Rio Summit, which will be
held on 20-22 June in Brazil.
Make global food security and climate stabilization a reality
The Commission has outlined seven recommendations designed to be
implemented concurrently by a constellation of governments,
international institutions, investors, agricultural producers,
consumers, food companies and researchers. They call for changes in
policy, finance, agriculture, development aid, diet choices and food
waste as well as revitalized investment in the knowledge systems to
support these changes.
Professor Judi Wakhungu, executive director of the African Center for
Technology Studies (ACTS), said, “As a Commission, 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.”
The Commission’s recommendations encourage 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. “It’s past time to
realize that farms of every size all over the world are fundamental to
human nutrition and economic well-being, but they are also facing
critical choices with significant implications for the way we manage
the planet for long term sufficiency,” according to U.S. Commissioner
Professor Molly Jahn of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Mobilize science and policy for sustainable agricultural practices
Alternative agricultural practices have the potential to deliver
benefits for both adaptation and mitigation of climate change and the
Commission has urged the UNFCCC to establish a work program that
addresses these issues together under the Subsidiary Body for
Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA). “Without an integrated
SBSTA work program for agriculture, we risk crafting fragmented global
climate policy,” says Commission Vice-Chair Dr. Mohammed Asaduzzaman,
Research Director at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies.
“Countries like Bangladesh clearly need support for climate-resilient
agriculture, but we also need a serious global commitment to reducing
greenhouse gas emissions, including in the agriculture sector.” Sea
level rise threatens major areas of Bangladesh, which already
experiences significant environmental migration.
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,”
Commissioner Dr. Nguyen Van Bo, president of the Viet Nam Academy of
Agricultural Science. “In Viet Nam, we have established model programs
to boost rice productivity and quality, mitigate greenhouse gases and
increase income for farmers.”
Sustainably intensifying agricultural production on existing land,
while reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, is one of
the seven Commission recommendations. “There have been some impressive
successes in sustainably boosting agricultural production, but there
is a lot more to be done,” says Commissioner Dr. Carlos Nobre of the
Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. “Brazil has
made strides in reducing poverty while protecting rainforests in the
last seven years, but if we do not advance the science and practice of
sustainable intensification, our forests and our farming economies
will be at risk.”
In China, nearly 400 kilograms of chemical fertilizer are used on
every hectare of farmland. “We have an opportunity and a plan to stop
unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions from inefficient farming
practices,” said Commissioner Professor Lin Erda, director of the
Research Centre of Agriculture and Climate Change at the Chinese
Academy of Agricultural Sciences. “We are mobilizing public policies
and budgets towards low-emission crop breeds and conservation of land,
water and energy.”
In Mexico, agriculture accounts for 77 percent of domestic water use,
in part due to substantial subsidies applied to the price of water and
electricity for irrigation. “We must redirect public subsidies to
promote economically and environmentally sound farming practices that
conserve finite natural resources,” says Commissioner Dr. Adrian
Fernández of the Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico.
A comprehensive approach to reshaping food systems
In addition to tackling agriculture, the Commission’s recommendations
explicitly recognize the “demand side” of food insecurity. “If we
don’t start to make use of the tools at our disposal to encourage
eating choices that are good for people and the planet, we must resign
ourselves to a growing diet-related disease burden,” cautions
Commissioner Dr. Marion Guillou, president of the French National
Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA).
The Commission also calls for policies and programs explicitly
designed to empower vulnerable populations. “Enabling smallholder
farmers to invest in the productive capacity of their land has been
shown to create economic and environmental resilience,” reports
Commissioner Professor Tekalign Mamo, state minister and advisor to
the Ethiopian Minister of Agriculture. “We must build on what we’ve
learned by expanding such programs, otherwise communities will remain
vulnerable to a downward spiral of lost productivity, poverty and food
insecurity.”
“Recent legislation in India has shown that poverty alleviation
programs can also address environmental sustainability objectives,”
says Indian Commissioner Dr. Rita Sharma, secretary of the National
Advisory Council in India. “The 2006 Mahatma Gandhi National Rural
Employment Guarantee Act helps rural farmers and households to manage
risk while delivering climate change resilience and mitigation through
projects that recharge groundwater, enhance soil fertility and
increase biomass.”
The need for improved data and decision support for land managers and
policy makers is underscored by the Commission. “Smart, sustainable
food production requires that we upgrade our knowledge of water,
soils, energy, meteorology, emissions, agricultural production and
forests, and that we understand how these elements work together as a
system,” says Australian Commissioner Dr. Megan Clark, chief executive
of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
(CSIRO). “In Australia, researchers, farmers and data managers are
working together to build an integrated capacity to deal with the
inevitable trade-offs embedded in our decisions.”
Decisive action to ensure a safe operating space for current and
future generations
The Commission’s report presents a stark picture of the challenges
ahead and calls for significantly raising the level of global
investment in sustainable agriculture and food systems in the next
decade. For example, it urges stronger follow-through on the 2009 G8
L’Aquila commitments to provide USD 20 billion for agricultural
development in poor countries and incorporating food security and
sustainable agriculture programs into UNFCCC “Fast Start” funding. But
it also provides examples of important progress, pointing to major
investments such as the Adaptation Fund of the Kyoto Protocol and the
€5.3 million climate-smart agriculture project in Malawi, Viet Nam and
Zambia funded by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the
European Commission.
The report points to opportunities across the whole food supply chain
to protect the environment and the bottom line. “Many public and
private sector leaders are already taking steps to overcome technical,
social, financial and political barriers to a sustainable food
system,” says Dr. Bruce Campbell, director of the CGIAR Research
Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, which
convened the Commission in February 2011. “The Commission’s work
spells out who needs to do what to take these early efforts to the
next level.”
The report encourages continued progress under the G20 on 2011
agreements, including design of rapid response and insurance
strategies to protect very poor populations from rising food prices or
meager harvests, as well as improved market transparency through a new
agriculture and energy database. At the Rio+20 Earth Summit,
Commissioners urge governments to make financial commitments for
regionally-based research, implementation, capacity building and
monitoring to improve agriculture and food systems. The report also
points to global agreements, such as World Trade Organization trade
treaties, and initiatives, such as the United Nation’s High-Level
Taskforce on the Global Food Security Crisis, and also emphasizes the
critical role of farmers and agribusinesses.
The Commission has created an animated video to illustrate why and how
humanity must transform the way food is produced, distributed and
consumed in response to changes in climate, global population, eating
patterns and the environment. “To operate within a ‘safe space’ for
people and the planet, we need to balance how much food we produce,
how much we consume and waste and how much agriculture contributes to
further climate change,” explains South African Commission Professor
Bob Scholes of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
(CSIR). The Commission is launching the video describing the
intersection of these limits at the Planet Under Pressure Conference:
http://bit.ly/SafeSpaceClimateFood