April 2010: The Global Donor Platform for Rural Development released an issues paper on agriculture and climate change that examines what happened on agriculture at the Copenhagen climate talks and future directions for agriculture and climate change both within and outside of the UNFCCC negotiations.

The paper highlights twelve priorities for 2010 including, inter alia: mention of food security and agriculture in the text from the Ad hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA); agreement on a work programme on agriculture under the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA); consideration of the prospects for including agriculture in a mechanism on reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation; coherence between mitigation and adaptation plans where agriculture is a mutual priority; and support for regional and national initiatives.
The paper underscores opportunities for agriculture in terms of accessing fast track funding and improving greenhouse gas emissions monitoring and verification from agriculture. It describes the launch of the new Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases. It also notes the importance of considering poverty alongside agriculture and climate change. The paper calls for integration of climate change into agricultural policies and programs, and increased research on adaptation and mitigation policies and technologies related to agriculture.
The Global Donor Platform for Rural Development is a network of 34 bilateral and multilateral donors, international financing institutions, intergovernmental organisations and development agencies. [Donor Platform Paper]