Climate change talks should include farmers

02/04/09.  Rome

FAO has urged policy makers to include agriculture in negotiations for a new climate change treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto protocol.

“Agricultural land is able to store and sequester carbon. Farmers that live off the land, particularly in poor countries, should therefore be involved in carbon sequestration to mitigate the impact of climate change,” said Alexander Mueller, FAO Assistant Director-General on the occasion of the ongoing UN negotiations on a future international climate change agreement in Bonn.

Agriculture accounts for about 14 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, and land use changes such as deforestation for another 17 percent.

“While agriculture is contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, farmers and their families, particularly in poor countries, will also become victims of climate change. It will worsen their living conditions and hunger and malnutrition will increase. Rural communities dependent on agriculture in a fragile environment will face an immediate risk of increased crop failure and loss of livestock. Mostly at risk are people living along coasts, in floodplains, mountains, drylands, and the arctic,” Mueller said.

“That is why agriculture needs to be put on the agenda of global climate change negotiations. Existing financing mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol allow only a very small fraction of the mitigation potential of agriculture to be realized and are therefore not sufficient,” Mueller noted. 

“But millions of farmers around the globe could also become agents of change helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Mueller said. By keeping higher levels of carbon in the soil – a process known as “carbon sequestration” – farmers can help reduce carbon dioxide levels in the air, enhance the soil’s resilience and boost crop yields.

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