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The concept of “climate-smart agriculture” is gaining greater visibility in international policy circles. For example, this week in The Hague, the Dutch government will convene senior government officials to gear up for a major launch of the Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture at the UN Secretary General’s Climate Summit in New York City in September.

One of the leading objectives of this Alliance is to promote the integration of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) into national policy. But what does it mean for CSA to become embedded in a country’s policy framework?

This is the central question of a new report on “Integrated National Policy Approaches to Climate-Smart Agriculture: Insights from Brazil, Ethiopia, and New Zealand” published this week by the CGIAR program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security.

In the absence of clear international policy signals and strong global agreements, countries are figuring out how they can achieve a “triple win” of climate change adaptation, mitigation, and food security based on a pragmatic understanding of their unique economic, environmental, and institutional context.

The three countries profiled in this study have pursued integrated policy approaches for agriculture and related sectors. They differ dramatically in the size of their populations, economies, and land base, as well as their farming systems and political structures, yet for all three, agriculture is a critical component of international trade, climate change mitigation potential, and national culture. All three countries are pursuing agricultural development that relies on greater crop and livestock productivity rather than agricultural expansion or increasing livestock numbers.

In the case of Brazil, a nation that has experienced dramatic socio-economic and environmental changes in recent decades and is a major player in international commodity markets, a series of national policies have demonstrated a stewardship commitment for globally significant carbon and biodiversity reserves. Brazil has invested in research to support sustainable intensification while creating legal and enforcement mechanisms to protect forest areas as a response to unrestrained agricultural expansion driven by market demand.

With high economic growth rates and the potential to be a major regional hydropower supplier, Ethiopia is already experiencing climate changes and an urgent need to tackle low agricultural productivity, land degradation, and poverty. With its innovative participatory watershed development initiatives and its Climate-Resilient Green Economy Strategy, Ethiopia is marshaling national and international funds toward land restoration and low-carbon development.

New Zealand is an agriculture-dependent developed country already experiencing significant economic impacts from climate change, which has weaned itself from agricultural subsidies to encourage adaptation. In the first nation to include agriculture and forestry in its national emissions trading scheme, New Zealand’s farm sector is gaining experience in monitoring and reporting agricultural GHG emissions, making investments in public-private research into sustainable agricultural intensification technologies and practices, and seeing major gains in emissions intensity.

Governments can select from an array of policy instruments ranging from regulatory mechanisms to economic incentives to public investments and educational campaigns to promote CSA. The report emphasizes the importance of changing policies that discourage CSA adoption before introducing new incentives to counteract negative policy signals.

Multilateral agencies, global donors, and international conventions and trade agreements can send clear, consistent signals that promote agriculture as a central part of the solution for climate change, unsustainable resource use, and food insecurity.

The new CCAFS report follows up on recommendations made in 2012 by the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, which proposed seven major strategies including integrating food security and sustainable agriculture into global and national policies.