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By Clare Pedrick

Climate smart technologies can raise agricultural productivity, reduce rural communities’ vulnerability to weather extremes and cushion people from the impacts of food price volatility. The approach holds out special hope for dry lands, according to experts meeting in Doha, Qatar, to discuss the future of agriculture and food security in these countries.

Changing climate patterns will affect people farming in all ecosystems. But those living in dry areas will face more acute challenges. Countries already suffering from high poverty levels due to poor land and water availability are being hard hit by climate change, with erratic rainfall, more frequent droughts, extreme temperatures, shifting climatic zones and the arrival of new crop pests and diseases.   

“We now face the additional challenge of climate change,” said Prof. Thomas Rosswall, chairman of the Independent Science Panel for the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). “The increased variation in rainfall and decrease in the total amount will dramatically affect production in the dry lands.”

Approaches to help buffer the effects of climate change on farmers range from simple solutions to high-tech options. Read more »

By Cecilia Schubert

As world food demand increases, so too does demand for farmland. Agricultural expansion threatens valuable forests and biodiversity, contributing to climate change and destroying precious ecosystems. Seeing as a country’s GDP growth from agriculture generates at least twice as much poverty reduction than any other sector, and 40 percent of the world’s population is engaged in farming, agriculture must be viewed as key for economic growth, food security, poverty reduction and environmental sustainability. Agriculture has huge potential in contributing to the solution, instead of only be seen as part of the problem. Is intensification the silver-bullet solution?

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