Win-win implications of climate-smart agriculture

Climate-smart agriculture has been described as the approach that addresses all the three elements of sustainable development namely: economic, social and environmental. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) views climate-smart agriculture as an approach that sustainably increases productivity, enhances resilience to climate change by reducing or removing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and enhances the achievement of national food security and development goals.

The term “climate-smart agriculture” (CSA) was adopted in late 2010 at the 1st Global Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change at The Hague. It describes tensions between maximizing global agricultural productivity, increasing the resilience of agricultural systems in the face of climate change, and concerns to GHG emissions from agriculture.

Projections show that while the global population will rise to 9.6 billion by 2050. Over the same period, there will be a reduction of global food production by 5 per cent. In other words, the world will have to produce more food to satisfy a larger population. As at today, the world actually produces enough food to feed everybody. However, the desirable distribution of food does not happen for various reasons which include import restrictions, global trade rules and inefficient distribution systems within countries. In Kenya for example, there are often reports of some regions of the country having large food surpluses while others face famine.

Once again, Kenya has become a pacesetter in formulating policies on climate change by launching, the Kenya Climate-Smart Agriculture Strategy (NCSAS) 2017 - 2026. Other landmark climate change policy documents include the National Climate Change Response Strategy (2010), which was a first in the region and the National Climate Change Action Plan (2013 - 2017) which is currently being revised to cover the period 2018 - 2022. The NCSAS sets out strategies for agricultural production that are sensitive and supportive of the need to continue climate change mitigation and adaptation as the country strives to become food secure.

What then is the connection between climate change and agriculture?

Studies show that 30 per of all greenhouse gases emitted globally are the result of agricultural activities. The main sources of GHG’s from agricultural systems are: livestock, particularly ruminants, which produce methane through digestion of plant matter; soil cultivation which releases trapped carbon dioxide and fertiliser and manure which produce nitrous oxide as a by-product. Other practices such as burning organic matter; emission of pollutants by farming machinery and transport of agricultural produce contribute to GHG emissions.

For agriculture to be described as being climate smart, measures must be taken to ensure that farming activities are carried out hand in hand with climate change and adaptation and mitigation measures. Practices such as conservation agriculture, which involves growing crops with minimal disturbance of the soil; agro-forestry, which entails growing trees and crops together; and organic farming, which involves the use of organic matter such as farmyard and compost manure to fertilise the soil, constitute examples of these measures.

As a climate mitigation measure, reduction of methane production by farm animals can be achieved by feeding them with diets that result in reduced production of methane. Increasing on-farm tree cover provides additional natural sinks for carbon dioxide, while avoiding the burning of crop residues and wastes and instead turning them into compost, helps to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide.

Agriculture that combines adaptation to climate change with optimising food production demands the use of the right seeds and crop varieties for the right agro-ecological zones. One effective way of making this happen is training extension officials about climate-smart agriculture so that they can give extension advice that helps farmers to increase food production without having to resort to practices that exacerbate climate change such as deforestation.

It is also important that farmers have access to timely information about the weather, particularly the onset and predicted levels, duration and distribution of rainfall during each season. Given that most of Kenya’s agriculture is rain-fed, it is critical that planting of crops be done in time in order to help farmers to take full advantage of any available rain.

Climate-smart agriculture is therefore not a single activity. Rather it is a planned and deliberate combination of practices that ensure that the production of food and other agricultural products takes consideration of measures that minimise environmental degradation and emission of GHGs. This requires raising the awareness of farmers about what these measures are and supporting them to implement them.