Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

Farmers need to grow Climate Smart (January 5 2013)Busani Bafana the Zimbabwean Journalist and founding member / coordinator of the Network on Environment & Agriculture Reporting, a media network in Zimbabwe that seeks to promote coverage of agriculture and science issues by journalists, has published an article on the Inter Press Service titled ‘Farmers Need to Grow Climate Smart’. Bafana states “Farmers cannot wait much longer for negotiators to reach an agreement on including a work programme on agriculture in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. And until one is approved, “it will continue to be difficult for farmers to produce the food needed, and at the same time reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” [states] Anette Friis from the Danish Food and Agriculture Council and spokesperson for Farming First, a global coalition calling on world leaders to increase agricultural output in a sustainable and socially responsible manner. “Countries failed to get an agreement on agriculture at this year’s (Conference of the Parties) COP18 in Doha, which means that discussions will not move to the next level and a work programme on agriculture is not foreseen for the near future.” “Progress has been excruciatingly slow,” [states] Bruce Campbell programme director [CCAFS] Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security . “One sentence in Durban in the final agreement. Then a few non-committal sentences at SBSTA in June. This mirrors the UNFCCC negotiations generally. What can one say, but that we are on target for a four-degree warmer world, which is likely to reduce growing seasons over much of sub-Saharan Africa by more than 20 percent.” According to CCAFS, agriculture and land use change, mostly from deforestation, contribute an estimated one-third of total greenhouse gas emissions. However, an improvement to crop yields since 1960 has already reduced agricultural emissions by 34 percent. Arguing that farmers around the world are experiencing the impacts of climate change daily, Farming First says the agriculture sector could play an important role in both climate change adaptation and mitigation. …Climate-smart agriculture includes conservation agriculture, crop rotation, agro-forestry, better weather forecasting and integrated crop-livestock management. It is aimed at environmentally-friendly increases in food production, which thereby reduce the emissions produced from agriculture.”

Inspired by Inter Press Service ow.ly/gpPYR image source Linkedin ow.ly/gpPYa

Julia Marton-Lefèvre the Hungarian American Director General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the world’s largest conservation environment membership organization which brings together states, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, scientists and experts in a unique worldwide partnership, has been interviewed by Busani Bafana for the Inter Press Service. In the interview Marton-Lefèvre stated “…through our SOS or Save Our Species initiative, IUCN and partners have already helped conserve close to 100 threatened species in over 30 countries. We know that conservation works, but we need significantly greater resources if we are to reverse the current extinction crisis. …a recent ground-breaking study found that we have overshot three out of nine of the so-called “planetary boundaries” that define a “safe operating space” for humanity, including biodiversity loss. Today we are dangerously close to reaching such “points of no return”, but it is very difficult to predict precisely when a tipping point is reached until it actually happens. For instance, the collapse of the north Atlantic cod fishery happened back in the 1970s but its impacts are felt even today. …Consumer demand for nature-based products – for food, medicine, clothing – has emerged as a major threat for many species that had not been affected by habitat loss or climate change thus far. Nature simply cannot keep up with our insatiable appetite for everything from raw materials to live animals – and we need to change that. …The biggest challenge now is getting everyone to understand what is at stake: that nature is not a luxury but the very foundation of our own wellbeing on this planet.”

Inspired by Inter Press Service ow.ly/d7evI image source Twitter ow.ly/d7eql