Battling Climate Change And Transforming Agri Food Systems

The Asian Development Bank hosted the Asia-Pacific Rural Development and Food Security Forum 2022 to prompt governments to provide leadership to rethink the future of agriculture amid complex and evolving challenges; explore new research, innovations, and technologies to build nature-positive food systems; and forge partnerships and collaboration to mobilize financing for innovation, research, and business for food and nutrition security. This publication provides the forum’s key highlights and takeaways on sustainable, resilient, and inclusive food systems, financing for sustainable agriculture and natural capital, nutrition security, and the rural–urban divide, and offers recommendations for moving forward.

This paper discusses how adapting food production systems to respond to consumer demand for healthier diets is a major opportunity to mitigate and adapt to climate change in agro-rural economies. It also addresses how existing technological solutions for climate change mitigation and adaptation need to create more balance between the production and consumption tiers of agrifood systems. Policy dialogue includes managing trade-offs between different sector and stakeholder interests and exploring synergies rather than focusing on exclusivity and competition. This requires a new framework that goes beyond sector-specific policy development. Political economy issues compound the outcome of evidence-based policy dialogue results. For example, political motivation for exporting protein-rich foods may lead to negative impacts on local food sovereignty and food production for local markets. In this regard, the use of concrete policy dialogue tools (food-based dietary guidelines, land use planning and discussions on a protein production strategy) can facilitate a more interactive policy process. The document also stresses how specific rural transformation efforts (e.g., adopting territorial approaches for conceiving and implementing policies; targeting specific producer and consumer groups; strengthening resource ownership; and empowering women and young people) are an integral part of agrifood systems transformation.

An authoritative reference on food system transformation and how it can be achieved in the face of climate change.

Transformations of Global Food Systems for Climate Change Resilience: Addressing Food Security, Nutrition, and Health provides poignant case studies of climate change resilience frameworks for nutrition-focused transformations of agriculture and food systems, food security, food sovereignty, and population health of underserved and marginalized communities from across the globe. Each chapter is drawn from diverse cultural contexts and geographic areas, addressing local challenges of ongoing food and health system transformations and illustrating forms of resistance, resilience, and adaptations of food systems to climate change. Fourteen chapters present global case studies, which directly address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Food and Agriculture Organization’s global call to action for transforming agriculture, addressing food security and nutrition, and the health of populations impacted by climate change and public health issues.They also integrate reflections, insights, and experiences resulting from the COVID-19 Pandemic. This edited volume includes research on (1) enhancing food sovereignty and food security for underserved populations with a particular focus on indigenous peoples; (2) improving locally contextualized definitions and measurements of climate change resilience, food security, hunger, nutrition, and health; (3) informing public health programs and policies for population health and nutrition; and (4) facilitating public and policy discourse on sustainable futures for community health and nutrition in the face of climate change and natural disasters, including ongoing and future pandemics or emergencies. Within this book, readers discover an array of approaches by the authors that exemplify the mutually engaged and reciprocal partnerships that are community-driven and support the positive transformation of the people with whom they work. By doing so, this book informs and drives a global sustainable future of scholarship and policy that is tied to the intersectionality and synergisms of climate change resilience, food security, food sovereignty, nutrition, and community health.

This book examines the implications of the net zero transition for food and farming in the UK and how these can be managed to avoid catastrophic climate change in the crucial decades ahead. For the UK to meet its international obligations for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, nothing short of a revolution is required in our use of land, our farming practices and our diet. Taking a historical approach, the book examines the evolution of agriculture and the food system in the UK over the last century and discusses the implications of tackling climate change for food, farming and land use, setting the UK situation in an international context. The chapters analyse the key challenges for this transition, including dietary change and food waste, afforestation and energy crops, and low-emission farming practices. This historical perspective helps develop an understanding of how our food, farming and land use system has evolved to be the way that it is, and draws lessons for how the agri-food system could evolve further to support the transition to net zero and avoid catastrophic climate change. Written in a clear and accessible style, this book will be essential reading to students and scholars of food, agriculture and the environment, as well as policymakers and professionals involved climate change policy and the agriculture and food industry.

Climate change presents an unprecedented challenge to the productivity and profitability of agriculture in North America. More variable weather, drought, and flooding create the most obvious damage, but hot summer nights, warmer winters, longer growing seasons, and other environmental changes have more subtle but far-reaching effects on plant and livestock growth and development. Resilient Agriculture recognizes the critical role that sustainable agriculture will play in the coming decades and beyond. The latest science on climate risk, resilience, and climate change adaptation is blended with the personal experience of farmers and ranchers to explore: The "strange changes" in weather recorded over the last decade The associated shifts in crop and livestock behavior The actions producers have taken to maintain productivity in a changing climate The climate change challenge is real and it is here now. To enjoy the sustained production of food, fiber, and fuel well into the twenty-first century, we must begin now to make changes that will enhance the adaptive capacity and resilience of North American agriculture. The rich knowledge base presented in Resilient Agriculture is poised to serve as the cornerstone of an evolving, climate-ready food system. Laura Lengnick is a researcher, policymaker, activist, educator, and farmer whose work explores the community-enhancing potential of agriculture and food systems. She directs the academic program in sustainable agriculture at Warren Wilson College and was a lead author of the report Climate Change and Agriculture in the United States: Effects and Adaptation.

This report assesses the cost of adaptation to climate change across a range of future climate scenarios and investment options. We focus on offsetting climate change impacts on hunger through investment in agricultural research, water management, and rural infrastructure in developing countries. We link climate, crop, water, and economic models to (1) analyze scenarios of future change in the agriculture sector to 2050 and (2) assess trade-offs for these investments across key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for poverty, hunger, and water. Our reference projections show that climate change slows progress toward eliminating hunger, with an additional 78 million people facing chronic hunger in 2050 relative to a no-climate-change future, over half of them in Africa south of the Sahara. Increased investments can offset these impacts. Achieving this would require that annual investment in international agricultural research increase from US$1.62 billion to US$2.77 billion per year between 2015 and 2050. Additional water and infrastructure investments are estimated to be more expensive than agricultural R&D at about US$12.7 billion and US$10.8 billion per year, respectively, but these address key gaps to support transformation toward food system resiliency. Findings on ranges of costs and trade-offs and complementarities across SDGs will help policymakers make better-informed choices between alternative investment strategies.

The purpose of the paper is to identify how climate change affects how we should approach the process of transforming agricultural systems (including crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry) to support global food security and poverty reduction in a sustainable way. We also identify implications for FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) and CGIAR priorities.

Agricultural Revolutions 3.

This book provides insights on innovative strategies to build resilient food systems in the wake of challenges posed by climate change. Providing food security to the growing population especially in developing countries without exacerbating the environment is a major challenge. Climate change is expected to reduce agricultural productivity, leading to a decline in overall food availability and significantly increasing the number of malnourished children in developing countries. Interventions for enhancing the adaptive capacity of farmers especially of small holders needs immediate impetus. The policy formulation and development programs must reorient in the wake of the new expectations and deliverables. This book comprises of sixteen chapters that discuss the trends in global agriculture development and food system. The book highlights different aspects of household food and nutritional security. The chapters covering diverse aspects address food system, rural and urban food chain, factors affecting their sustainability and short and long term solutions to make them climate resilient. Important issues having significant implications on climate change such as Waste management, Value chain, Agri-marketing, etc. are also covered. The book would be an important resource for researchers in food science, environmental sciences and agriculture. It would also be beneficial for students and future scientists working on sustainable agriculture and food security.