Identifying Climate-smart agriculture research needs

Abstract

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an approach to help agricultural systems worldwide, concurrently addressing three challenge areas: increased adaptation to climate change, mitigation of climate change, and ensuring global food securitythrough innovative policies, practices, and financing. It involves a set of objectives and multiple transformative transitions for which there are newly identified knowledge gaps. We address these questions raised by CSA within three areas: conceptualization, implementation, and implications for policy and decision-makers. We also draw up scenarios on the future of the CSA concept in relation to the 4 per 1000 Initiative (Soils for Food Security and Climate) launched at UNFCCC 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21). Our analysis shows that there is still a need for further interdisciplinary research on the theoretical foundation of the CSA concept and on the necessary transformations of agriculture and land use systems. Contrasting views about implementation indicate that CSA focus on the "triple win" (adaptation, mitigation, food security) needs to be assessed in terms of science-based practices. CSA policy tools need to incorporate an integrated set of measures supported by reliable metrics. Environmental and social safeguards are necessary to make sure that CSA initiatives conform to the principles of sustainability, both at the agriculture and food system levels.

Co-designing Climate-Smart Farming Systems With Local Stakeholders: A Methodological Framework for Achieving Large-Scale Change

“…Such specificity lies mainly in the need to reduce trade-offs among the three pillars of climate-smart agriculture. Such trade-offs may arise at the farm level when prioritizing practices address one pillar and not the others (Torquebiau et al, 2018). They may also arise at different steps of the production and transformation process when good CSA practices are applied but without considering emissions that may occur when transforming such products.…”

“…In 2014, the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture (GACSA) was launched with the goal of helping 500 million farmers practice climate-smart agriculture (CSA) defined as "agriculture that sustainably increases productivity, enhances resilience (adaptation), reduces/removes GHGs (mitigation) where possible, and enhances achievement of national food security and development goals" (FAO, 2013). Despite the controversies around the meaning of the concept and its lack of theoretical background (Torquebiau et al, 2018), CSA provides the framework within which synergies among adaptation, mitigation, and improved food security for small-scale farmers can be identified, developed, and disseminated. Innovative agricultural systems are needed to find synergies among those three pillars.…”

A Climate Smartness Index (CSI) Based on Greenhouse Gas Intensity and Water Productivity: Application to Irrigated Rice

“…Since its launch by the FAO in 2009, Climate Smart Agriculture has been reshaped and consolidated by an increasing pool of scientific evidence related with the impact of agronomic practices on CSA pillars and their suitability (Lipper and Zilberman, 2018). However, the contextdependent nature of CSA and the comprehensive range of cropping systems and environments where the agriculture is developing, add to the considerable challenge of quantitatively measuring and comparing the climate smartness of practices (Wollenberg et al, 2016;Torquebiau et al, 2018).…”

Can an innovation platform support a local process of climate-smart agriculture implementation? A case study in Cauca, Colombia

“…However, for food security enhancing practices to be considered as CSA, it is necessary to ensure that they have co-benefits in terms of adaptation and mitigation (Torquebiau et al 2018). To this end, it is imperative to use tools that allow measuring these co-benefits.…”

“…Saj et al (2017), propose to formally favour agroeocological options in CSA initiatives for better credibility of the concept. Torquebiau et al (2018) summarized some of the current challenges faced by the concept and the risk of compromising the overall intentions of CSA when synergies and positive feedback among the three pillars are not explored. Despite these limitations, the CSA concept supports the analysis on how to find synergies between food security and CC issues, assuming that agriculture is both vulnerable, and part of the solution, to CC.…”