April 2011

While many agricultural activities produce greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation and clearing land through slash-and-burn may be the worst culprit. When farmers expand into forested lands, trees that might store carbon for decades to come are lost and large amounts of carbon are released into the atmosphere. Yet agricultural expansion into forests is inevitable when poor farmers across the tropics lack sufficient access to land or opportunities to boost productivity on their current landholdings. They must seek new areas to plant their crops, including cocoa. Read more »

In order to arm themselves against climate shocks, farmers need better access to seasonal climate forecasts. Particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, where up to 70 percent of farmers depend on rain-fed agriculture, weather information is an essential adaptation tool. New research from the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) finds that it's now possible to predict climate conditions in advance of planting seasons in most parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.... but the information is still not getting to farmers. Read more »

One of the challenges for governments in planning for climate change, particularly in agriculture and food security, is the lack of information on what changes are expected for a particular area, and when these changes may occur. This is partly because climate data, tools and models often cover large areas (such as entire countries or regions), and time scales that don’t fit into the short-term outlooks of most policymakers. Scaling data, tools and models down to suit decision-makers' needs is an important first step for the CCAFS program, and will help make the existing wealth of climate information more accessible to a range of users.

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by Meine van Noordwijk, and Peter Minang

This year, forests remain on the climate change agenda, building on several years of policy progress for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) as well as the current International Year of Forests. Attention is also growing on how agriculture can reduce emissions, as well as its fundamental role in ensuring climate adaptation in most of the world. With these developments, it is easy to overlook the ‘in-between’ issues of trees in agricultural landscapes. Agroforestry and the deliberate use of trees was framed over 30 years ago as an alternative to ‘open field’ agriculture as the major pathway for intensification, as well as recognizing the roles farmers play in domesticating forests. Read more »