Category Archives: News

greenhouse-gas-emissions-publicationAs countries shift from mitigation commitments to action in the 2016 climate change negotiations and beyond, many countries are unable to plan for emissions reductions in agriculture due to a lack of data.

Recognizing that cost of research has often been an impediment for some countries, authors provide guidance on how to choose from available methods, given users’ objectives, resources, and capacities. 

Originally published on the website of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)

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27479082062_f9109dfd96_oRwanda has been confronted by the vagaries of a changing climate in recent years. Hailstorms, floods, strong winds, heavy rains leading to landslides, prolonged droughts and changed weather patterns have become more recurrent, making seasons increasingly unpredictable and traditional indicators no longer suitable. This has many implications for the mostly rain-fed agriculture sector in Rwanda, which is also the main source of subsistence for the majority of the country’s population. Agriculture contributes to 30% of the GDP, whereas pastoralism, practiced only in small pockets of dry areas in the country, contributes to 10% of the GDP.

Setting the base

The CGIAR Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in collaboration with the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) are leading the research-based monitoring and evaluation component of the Rwanda Climate Services for Agriculture project.

“Community members interviewed said they often lack access to climate information, more so the women. Farmers are therefore less equipped to adopt climate-smart practices that can boost their agricultural production during times of climate shocks,” said Jeanne Coulibaly, an economist at the World Agroforestry Centre. “Expanding the dissemination of climate information services tailored to the needs of end-users, and increasing their capacity to use the information is fundamental to improving farmers’ resilience to climate change and variability.”

Originally published on the website of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change and Food Security (CCAFS).

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tree_agricultureTrees grown on agricultural land significantly contribute to global carbon budgets, say authors in this recent study.

If carbon from trees grown on agricultural land was well accounted for, total carbon estimates for agricultural land would be more than four times higher than they currently are, they add.

This is good news, and getting better: between 2000 and 2010, tree cover on agricultural land increased –three percent, resulting in a 4.6 percent increase in biomass carbon globally.

Yet while the importance of carbon stored by forests is widely recognized, carbon stored by trees on agricultural land has been much ignored, authors say.

Total carbon estimates for agricultural land could be more than four times higher

21653208749_a15cc4566d_z_0The momentum for large-scale restoration has never been stronger. Restoration is increasingly recognized as a key strategy to meet climate change and sustainable development goals as well as growing demand for food, water and energy.

In October 2015, the African Union endorsed a target to restore 100 million hectares (247 million acres) of degraded land by 2030. The African Forest Landscape Restoration initiative (AFR100) was launched at COP21 to facilitate action towards this target, and as a contribution to the Bonn Challenge and African Resilient Landscapes Initiative (ARLI). AFR100 connects African nations with targeted technical and financial support to scale up restoration on the ground.

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In 19 years, Ramu Gaviti’s six acres of land have gone from barren, dry and sparsely vegetated to fertile, moist and thick with biomass. Peacocks, wild pigs and rabbits have reappeared and in rejuvenated rivers, boys trap fish in baskets.

Gaviti once scratched $29 (£23) worth of millet and grass per acre per year. In bad years he left his smallholding in Jawhar, in the hills to the north-east of Mumbai, and went to mine sand at the coast for construction. “Sometimes you feel as if you can go in the river and drown,” said the farmer, who has heard of 50 men who never returned. Now he has more than 1,000 fruit, nut and forest trees, paddy rice, a tractor, a brick house, and an income the equivalent of $1,200 (£975) a year.

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“The contribution of trees in agriculture into the global carbon balance is still widely ignored. And if we don’t … start really blasting this message around the world, we are missing one of the biggest opportunities that this institution has had for many, many years.”

This is how Dennis Garrity, UN’s Drylands Ambassador and former Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), addressed his colleagues at the annual Science Week held in Nairobi at the beginning of September.

He said that there is a huge carbon storage potential of over four tons of carbon per ha per year on average. “So the main question is: How do we dramatically increase carbon stocks in agriculture?”

Garrity suggested leveraging countries Intended National Determined Contributions (INDC) to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions for theAfrican Forest and Landscape Restoration Initiative AFR100. It’s neither “too late nor too early” because 22 African countries have made commitments of a total of 59 million hectares they want to restore. According to Garrity, these countries will realize that the dominant way they are going to meet their commitments is through agroforestry. Land restoration will also happen in croplands and pasture lands. “In many countries, agroforestry has already been seen as the major vehicle for land restoration,” he affirmed.

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