Agriculture, food security and climate change

The need to get the framing right

Lim Li Ching

ONE hundred and twenty-two civil society and farmers' organisations sent a statement of concern to the organisers of the 2nd Global Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change. The meeting was held in Hanoi, Vietnam from 3-7 September and was co-organised by the Governments of Vietnam and the Netherlands, with the support of the World Bank and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Civil society's understanding of the problems and solutions differed fundamentally from the framing posed by the organisers, which appeared to push climate change mitigation responsibilities onto small farmers in the South. Furthermore, even though smallholder women and men across the world provide food and food security for billions of people, they were not adequately consulted in the process and in the run-up to it.

Civil society highlighted that the key problem still remains with emissions from developed countries, which are already contributing to climate change and causing impacts on food production. They called on developed countries to urgently and immediately undertake drastic emission reductions to prevent further damage to our agriculture systems and food production.

Moreover, the Conference did not address the key contributor to global agriculture emissions - emissions from industrial agriculture. Civil society argued that any real attempt by the global community to address agricultural emissions must recognise the primary responsibility of developed countries to transform their agriculture systems.

For developing countries, adaptation to climate change has to be the main priority, adequately supported by developed-country public finance. The agricultural challenges faced by the poorest and most vulnerable, in Africa but also in Asia, in small-island states and in Latin America, are adaptation challenges. The Conference unfortunately did not place emphasis on this urgent need of developing countries.

Civil society also raised concerns about the false solutions of carbon markets that do not decrease greenhouse gas emissions, but merely displace emissions and enable developed countries to continue emitting high levels of greenhouse gases. When the carbon offsets market is linked to 'climate-smart agriculture', past experience and recent studies have shown that the main beneficiaries are carbon market traders, brokers and consultants, not smallholder farmers.

The real solutions, civil society pointed out, lie in agroecological practices and sustainable agricultural systems, using techniques, breeds and varieties developed and selected by small farmers for millennia. They called on the Conference to champion a global transition to sustainable ecological agriculture, focus on enabling peasants, small-scale producers and local and indigenous communities to adapt to climate change, ensure adequate public financing for agriculture, and avoid questionable technological fixes and market mechanisms.

Because of these concerns raised by civil society before and during the Conference, the final 'key messages' and summary report from the Conference were only a co-Chairs' summary and were not negotiated nor enjoyed consensus. The organisations attending the Conference maintained that so long as the framing of the critical issue of agriculture, food security and climate change was not right, they would continue to raise their concerns about the process.

The text of the civil society statement is reproduced below.

WE, the undersigned civil society organisations from around the world, are concerned that the objectives of this Conference reflect the same flawed approach as the first Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change, held in The Hague in October 2010. The approach also regrettably continues to marginalise peasants and small-scale food producers, yet they are the ones whose livelihoods are most at risk and who most urgently need to be heard.

The central themes of the 2nd Global Conference, including 'climate-smart agriculture', 'green growth' and the 'landscape approach', are heavily contested. Many civil society organisations believe these approaches have not been sufficiently considered from the perspective of peasants, small-scale producers and indigenous peoples, who are suffering the worst impacts of climate change. We remain concerned about the continued lack of transparency, participation and consultation with many governments, farmers and civil society in preparing for the Conference. We note that the 'Roadmap' from the first Conference was neither endorsed by attending governments nor accepted as a binding outcome.

Address the impacts of the climate crisis on food production

The most important agenda for a conference on food security, agriculture and climate change should focus on the protection of agriculture from climate change. Climate change is already threatening the livelihoods and food security of the poor and vulnerable. The industrial model of agricultural production threatens the viability of ecosystems and contributes massively to climate change. Nothing less than a system change - towards ecological agriculture, based on principles that create healthy soils and cultivate biological diversity, and which prioritise farmers' and traditional knowledge - is needed in the face of climate change. There is also a critical need to reverse the economic concentration of global markets - particularly for grains, livestock and food processing - that has led to unsustainable forms of industrial agriculture worldwide and the bulk of the emissions from the agriculture sector. Unfortunately, the programme fails to address these necessary system changes. Instead, it appears to endorse a greater role for the private sector to invest in schemes that will commodify natural resources and disenfranchise local and indigenous communities. 

A focus on adaptation

Resources must be urgently directed to adaptation, given the serious current threats posed by climate change to agriculture. Agroecology is the most important, reliable set of practices to protect yields in the face of climate change and should be supported significantly with public finance. The Conference should emphasise identified adaptation priorities of developing countries and the provision of steady and reliable public finance to developing countries that will have to cope with the worst consequences of climate change. In addition, adaptation financing should be in the form of grants, not loans.

Key policy developments should be to work with local food providers and help them to conserve, store and further develop their own varieties and breeds. It is clear that the best hedge against the increasing instability of local climates in the future is a diversity of varieties and breeds to address the threat of increasing floods, drought and storms. Industrial agriculture has reduced the number of farmers' varieties and breeds drastically and thereby dangerously reduced the basis of food security for the future. This must end now; we need new policies centred on the real needs of peasants, small-scale producers and indigenous peoples.

Critical review of market-based approaches needed

The framing of the Conference agenda appears to endorse market-based approaches. Yet evidence from the last two years suggests that carbon markets and market-based approaches linked to them are not appropriate for peasants and small-scale producers. These approaches need open and critical review. Carbon markets have repeatedly failed to deliver real funds to projects on the ground. Moreover, carbon market mechanisms actually finance the emissions reduction commitments of developed countries through 'offsetting' projects in developing countries. This not only increases the threat of climate change by allowing developed countries to continue rather than change their unsustainable production and consumption patterns, but also forces emissions reduction responsibilities onto peasants and small producers in developing countries. Developed country mitigation and 'offsetting' priorities should not and cannot drive discussions on the nexus between climate change, food security and agriculture. 

We note that the landscape approach, promoted by the World Bank, has a high profile in the agenda. We believe that the Bank's role as both policy adviser and carbon broker for soil carbon and landuse credits makes it an inappropriate institution to guide governments on the pros and cons of landuse offsets. Using a market-based approach to convert large tracts of landscapes that include water, land, agriculture and forests into commodities is unethical when it comes to questions of food security. Land-grabbing in the developing world has become an ever greater concern since the first Conference, particularly as financial assets become unreliable and both State and private actors secure land for financial gain and food security. The impacts of 'climate-smart agriculture' and the landscape approach should be examined in this new economic context where land and the food grown on it have become financial assets for financial speculators and institutional investors.

Implement rather than ignore IAASTD findings

The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), initiated by the World Bank and FAO, sponsored by UN agencies and approved by 58 governments, contains some of the most complete and authoritative sets of policy options to strengthen the productivity and resilience of the world's food and agricultural systems, while prioritising social equity and sustainability. We call on the Hanoi Conference to endorse the recommendations of the IAASTD, and for governments and international organisations, including the World Bank and FAO, to commit to the implementation of the IAASTD findings.

Conclusion

We are frustrated that the peasants, small-scale producers and indigenous peoples who provide 70% of the world's food continue to be left out of the debate. The Hanoi Conference is an opportunity to support fair and effective solutions to the agriculture and climate crises. We call on the conference organisers to champion a global transition to ecological agriculture, focus on enabling peasants, small-scale producers and local and indigenous communities to adapt to climate change, ensure adequate public financing for agriculture, and avoid questionable technological fixes and market mechanisms.

We believe that peasants, small-scale farmers, labourers, indigenous peoples, women and civil society organisations engaged on issues of food security, food sovereignty, the right to food, and the preservation and use of traditional knowledge are essential to this debate. They provide practical, just and affordable solutions to the problems of food security and climate change. They need to be heard. No process that ignores their voices can be considered legitimate.                       

A researcher with the Third World Network, Lim Li Ching coordinates TWN's sustainable agriculture work.

*Third World Resurgence No. 264/265, August/September 2012, pp 48-50