Events

Our knowledge of greenhouse gas sources and sinks in smallholder agricultural systems is remarkably limited. That uncertainty compromises up-scaling of low-emissions agricultural development solutions, constrains smallholder participation in the emerging green economy, and weakens low-income countries' contribution to global climate negotiations.

Watch the live-streamed SAMPLES science seminar: 

The Standard Assessment of Mitigation Potential and Livelihoods in Smallholder Systems, or SAMPLES approach, fills this knowledge gap by applying newly developed and existing methods to generate novel, rigorous, and comparable data on greenhouse gas balances and livelihood-climate trade-offs due to smallholder farming. In other words, the SAMPLES program helps address low emissions development challenges in developing countries.

More on how this is done here: Moving mitigation forward: Improving quantification of agricultural greenhouse gases

The program studies however not only mitigation practices, but it also aims at identifying their space within farms and landscapes. The logic behind this is that for mitigation to be pro-poor it shouldn’t affect food production and income generation, and therefore a landscapes ”re-design” might be needed. This will create opportunities for intensification of agriculture ­ possible with increased GHG emission per unit of land in some limited areas ­ but will also provide room for forests and rangelands to sequester carbon and support biodiversity.

In 2014, the SAMPLES reseach network will include sites and farming systems in nine countries with the intention to inform program and policy development. The session will be live-streamed during a workshop dedicated to CLIFF scholarship students in Denmark. Learn more about the Climate Food and Farming Network (CLIFF). 

Learn more about the SAMPLES approach: From field to landscape: Tackling mitigation and livelihoods with help from farmers.