1 December 2009: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has released a policy brief that identifies opportunities in the agriculture sector to address challenges relating to development, food security and climate change mitigation and adaptation. The report, titled “Harvesting agriculture’s multiple benefits: mitigation, adaptation, development and food security,” highlights that many agriculture-based climate change mitigation options, such as restoration of degraded land and using cover crops on fallow fields, also improve food security and productivity.
The report notes that leveraging financing through mitigation from agricultural practices would also contribute to food security funding shortfalls. The report underscores challenges to realizing these synergies, such as identifying and testing innovative ways of sourcing and delivering funds and developing approaches to measurement, reporting and verification. To advance the goal of building confidence, capacity and commitment to implement action on agriculture post-Copenhagen, FAO advocates the establishment of a work programme on agriculture under the UNFCCC to clarify technical and methodological issues. FAO also calls for the development of country-led pilot programmes for agriculture mitigation readiness that focus on adaptation, food security and development synergies.[FAO Press Release ][The Policy Brief]