Climate Change and agriculture: Challenges and opportunities for mitigation

The challenge of climate change is daunting and demands the participation of all sectors. Agriculture needs to be part and parcel of efforts to meet international and national climate change objectives.

Alexander Mueller, Assistant Director-General, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
20/03/2009 15:50
The sector is a key source of global greenhouse gas emissions (14% or 6.8 Gt of CO2 eq . ), but with a high technical mitigation potential (5.5-6 Gt of CO2 eq. per year by 2030). 74% of emissions from agriculture are in developing countries. Agriculture is a sector where mitigation action has strong potential co-benefits for sustainable development (food security, poverty reduction among the 70% of the poor living in rural areas, environmental services) and climate change adaptation (improving agro-ecosystem resilience).

Most of the mitigation potential from agriculture could be achieved through soil carbon sequestration (89%) and roughly 70% could be realized in developing countries. In addition, there is also potential to decrease emissions of other non-carbon greenhouse gases (N2O and CH4 ) through more efficient use of fertilizers and improved rice and livestock systems.

Higher levels of organic matter in soil translate into better plant nutrient content, increased water retention capacity and better structure – eventually leading to higher yields and greater resilience. Since carbon is a main ingredient in organic matter, there are strong synergies among increased production, climate change mitigation and adaptation through sequestering this carbon in the soil.

Fortunately, we already have a good scientific understanding of the different farming practices that can be used to build organic matter in soils and to keep it there. Techniques developed for organic and conservation agriculture, including improved pasture management, agroforestry, mulching, composting, crop rotation, cover crops, low/no-till are relevant, as they help to accumulate soil organic matter.

Financing/incentive schemes will be required to facilitate the transition to improved management practices that generate both climate change mitigation and improved agricultural performance in the long run, or to compensate farmers in situations where any loss of agricultural revenues may occur.

Establishing financing mechanisms to support soil carbon sequestration must address certain complexities; including the need to ensure permanence, additionality and to account for saturation (reaching maximum capacity for soils to store carbon) and timing (heavily degraded soils may need 7 years to accumulate organic matter). However, methodologies and approaches to deal with these constraints exist and are being continuously perfected and simplified.

How do we achieve this? At the international level, we need to create enabling conditions for further work on mitigation from agriculture in the next climate agreement. Funding mechanisms, including carbon markets but also mechanisms drawing on public sector resources, must have the necessary scope, flexibility and diversity to enable agriculture, including smallholder agriculture, to contribute to climate change mitigation in line with its potential, while contributing to sustainable development.

At country level, pilot activities are needed to test measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) methodologies and incentive/payment schemes, buttressed by capacity building, technology transfer and institutional mechanisms.


At country level, pilot activities are needed to test measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) methodologies and incentive/payment schemes, buttressed by capacity building, technology transfer and institutional mechanisms.

Finally, beyond Copenhagen in the transitional period leading up to 2012, ways of realizing terrestrial carbon sequestration from all land uses may need to be explored to enable better management of synergies and trade-offs across different land uses and land use changes.

Mitigation from agriculture has been the focus of this blog, however, it should not be forgotten that adaptation of agro-ecosystems and farming systems to more anomalous and rapidly changing climatic conditions will be dramatic, costly and in need of urgent action. Action that can serve both mitigation and adaptation needs will be at a premium and some agricultural practices are synergistic in this regard.

Agricultural practices that improve land use and management, through increasing and maintaining soil carbon stocks can, if properly implemented, generate multiple benefits: climate change mitigation, increased agricultural and food production, pro-poor income generation, environmental services and improved resilience/adaptive capacity of farming systems. This constitutes an enormous opportunity for meeting a number of key global and national goals. The challenge is to ensure that the enabling means embodied in a new climate change agreement will encourage the agriculture sector and its farmers to generate these benefits under increasingly adverse conditions shaped by global financial, food and fuel insecurity.

Alexander Mueller is Assistant Director-General, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).