22 April 2014: Building on the results of Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of scientists, practitioners and financiers met to identity actionable opportunities for reducing agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in a way that increases farmers’ food security and builds resilience to climate change.

Options that were identified include: conserving existing carbon stocks in soil; reducing emissions from livestock systems; avoiding emissions through efficient use of nitrogen fertilizers; and reducing emissions from irrigated rice. The group stressed activities that shift food consumption patterns and decrease waste. Presenters described regional and national contexts for mitigation activites, including examples from Costa Rica on meeting carbon neutrality goals, and efforts in Ghana to increase sustainable value chains.

Participants stressed that scaling up will require consumer demand, supportive regulatory framework and governance assistance, technical assistance and financing incentives and engagement with stakeholders. They particularly noted the need to improve country level accounting. The meeting, which took place in Washington, DC, US, on 16 April 2014, was convened by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases and the World Bank. [CCAFS Blog Post]