Expanding Food Production Amidst Climate Change

As climate change ushers in a new era of warmer temperatures that threaten crops worldwide, climate-smart agriculture, a term coined just a few years ago, will be key to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving food security in the decades ahead, according to a recent interview series from FutureFood 2050.

Sponsored by IFT as part of its 75-year anniversary in 2014, FutureFood 2050—a multiyear communications program—explores how increasingly sophisticated science and technology will help feed the world’s projected 9 billion-plus population in 2050.

Several articles in the climate-change series focus on how agricultural and environmental thought leaders are finding solutions in the developing world and Africa.

When a farmer in Kenya buys a bag of seeds, he can begin practicing climate-smart agriculture strategies immediately. Inside the seed bag is a scratch card with a code, which the farmer can text to ACRE (Agriculture and Climate Risk Enterprise) to purchase “replanting guarantee” insurance. For a typical fee of 5–25% of the inputs or harvest value, deducted automatically via a mobile phone-based money transfer service, his farm will then be monitored by satellite for 21 days. If germination fails due to drought, the farmer receives the full cost of the seeds via mobile transfer.

The ACRE “index insurance” plan, based on an index correlated with weather-related crop loss, is one of a host of innovative new projects designed to implement climate-smart agriculture in developing countries, explained Bruce Campbell, director of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), based in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Executing successful climate-smart agriculture programs in the developing world, he believes, will require starting—literally—from seed like this. “It is a research revolution: Instead of starting out by identifying a goal to pursue, we go out and talk to stakeholders—the farmers,” said Campbell. By identifying “impact partners” who will make things happen and strategic partners who can make it possible, he said, the strategy is to work backwards to identify the knowledge needed to bring about the change. Then, CCAFS works with people and organizations at all levels to bring its vision to fruition.

Former Niger prime minister Ibrahim Assane Mayaki has dedicated his career to improving the lives of fellow Africans. Today, as CEO of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), a South Africa-based body of the African Union, Mayaki is advocating for a radical change in the way the continent farms in order to minimize the environmental impact on the land while yielding better harvests: climate-smart agriculture.

He sees promise in climate-smart initiatives like computer models that assess changing weather patterns, so farmers may be able to change their investments and practices in anticipation of the new growing conditions they will soon confront. Or new seeds cultivated for different growing time frames, to accommodate shorter growing/rainy seasons. Even low-tech tools will have a valuable role to play, such as radio weather bulletins broadcast in Mali to tell farmers when to plant, and text messaging apps like M-Farm, which provides small-scale farmers in Kenya with information about current crop market rates.

“Some farming techniques we have used for generations are not consistent with changing weather patterns [and] the demand on agriculture for food for the global 9 billion population by 2050, [up] from the current 7 billion,” explained Mayaki. “We have no choice but to innovate new technologies—in the type of seed and breeding stock we use, through tillage or no tillage technologies, including rippers, jab planters and direct seeders, as well as in the agro-industry. Expanded and more accessible irrigation technologies and practices [are] another way to mitigate the effects climate change will have on duration, stability and predictability of rain.”

According to Mayaki, climate-smart agriculture is not a one-sector issue, one-discipline issue, or even a one-country or regional issue. “Scaling up will require innovative multi-partner, multi-sectorial collaboration, alliances and partnerships. Public-private partnerships will require aspects such as rebuilding trust [and] strengthening credibility of public institutions, e.g., predictable decision-making processes [and] negotiation skills among public staff,” stated Mayaki.

Former U.S. secretary of agriculture Daniel Glickman agrees. “It helps to frame the problem as one of producing enough food for a growing world population, not just as an issue for farmers,” noted Glickman, who is currently vice president of the Aspen Institute and board chairman of the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research (FFAR), a nonprofit corporation created in the 2014 farm bill to raise money for agricultural research on global challenges.

“There’s good bipartisan support for foreign assistance generally, and the Obama administration has done a good job of focusing on enhancing production and building small-farm agriculture, instead of just treating food aid as a way for the United States to distribute surplus crops,” explained Glickman. “Food security is finally on the agenda at high-level multilateral meetings because it relates to political stability in the developing world.”

To read these and other stories in the climate-change series, please visit www.futurefood2050.com.