* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
A new alliance aims to help farmers raise productivity, adapt to climate change, and reduce agricultural emissions
We only have one planet, and it is under immense pressure. Pressure to feed 9 billion mouths by 2050, without raising greenhouse gas emissions. Pressure to protect natural resource bases for future generations and to the build resilience of those vulnerable to the risk of natural disasters that can trap farmers and households in poverty.
With so many competing and complex problems, one may wonder where to begin. At the Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture in Abu Dhabi this week, the international agricultural research network CGIAR and key agencies drove forward a new global movement that is ready to tackle these challenges.
The Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture (GACSA) is a new collaborative initiative dedicated to ensuring food security in the face of a warming world, which will enable farmers to raise productivity, adapt to climate change, and reduce the impact agriculture has on global greenhouse gas emissions.
It is rare that we see such a broad-based group come together to tackle a particular problem. Governments, farmers, scientists, businesses, research and civil society, as well as regional unions and international organisations are represented in GACSA.
There is no simple solution to climate change for agriculture, and we see this exchange of ideas between such a broad cross section of actors as the only way forward to make real change.
Let us give an example of how GACSA is already working for Nigeria. In 2012, devastating floods displaced 2 million people in the county and killed 363 people. The government has been actively looking for ways to protect against future disasters.
The Nigerian representative to a GACSA meeting spoke of the strides being made in Nigeria to register all farmers on cell phones, and the desire to now use cell phones as the basis for seasonal forecasts and weather index insurance.
During one of these meetings he learned about CGIAR’s groundbreaking research on this topic, and approached the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) to explore how such approaches could be applied in Nigeria.
CGIAR brought together Nigerian government representatives and many partners for a follow-up event on South-South learning on this very topic. There, the Nigerian representative was able to connect with an advanced climate laboratory that could advise on reconstructing local weather information for use in index insurance and seasonal forecasts. He was also able to connect to various CGIAR centres to link insurance with appropriate crop technologies.
Index insurance could bring huge benefits to over 15 million farmers, and Nigeria has now pledged to cover its farmers with insurance by 2017.
FARMER ADOPTION
So what is next for GACSA? How can we drive its agenda forward, and move from ideas to action?
As leaders in the research community, we believe one of the key next steps is to begin to look beyond the technological innovations we have discovered in recent years, and explore what can be done to accelerate and scale up the adoption of these technologies by the farmers who need them.
In the past 15 years, the adoption of agricultural innovations among smallholder farmers has been low, commonly ranging between 0 and 15 percent. This shows us that our climate-smart approaches need to consider different realities - in policy, legislation, infrastructure and funding - that will encourage their uptake.
Let us learn from and replicate the successful examples of scaling up of innovations we have seen recently, such as getting seasonal forecasts to rural farmers in Senegal.
Senegal teeters on the edge of the Sahel, an area known for seasons of drought and subsequent famine. Reducing the risk of such disasters, through improved access to climate information, is a crucial step towards food and livelihood security in this region.
The approach combined high-tech science with local knowledge: first seasonal forecasts were produced based on the latest models. But forecasts must be tailored to farmers’ needs if they are going to be useful.
Over two planting seasons, scientists undertook research that involved farmer organisations, local NGOs and government agencies to develop a deep understanding of the needs of male and female farmers.
A plan was then created for scaling up that drew in the national meteorological service and 15 community radio stations. After just three seasons, the approach was trialled with 2 to 3 million households. This example illustrates the kinds of partnerships needed to make change, and how real impact only happens when the technology is in line with what farmers need and is made accessible to them on a large scale.
With this kind of approach, we can help address the urgent needs imposed by climate change and the natural disasters it can cause - whether they are acute, such as the Nigerian floods, or more chronic such as drought in the Sahel. GACSA can be a place for learning, for incubating new ideas, and for stimulating the necessary links across different groups that will have a lasting impact on global food security.
We urge all those who have a role to play to join this global movement of climate-smart agriculture. Let’s not wait for another food crisis that will push millions back into hunger and poverty, as with the food price spike of 2008. Though the threat climate change poses to our food supply is less abrupt, it is there, and it will worsen unless we act.
Frank Rijsberman is CEO of CGIAR Consortium, a global partnership that unites organisations engaged in research for a food-secure future. Bruce Campbell is director of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).
