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Farmers and experts are frustrated that agriculture has again been sidelined at U.N. climate talks

CGIAR Climate's insight:
Bruce Campbell, director of the CGIAR research programme on climate change, agriculture and food security (CCAFS), noted that a workshop had been held at the talks on scientific knowledge to enhance climate change adaptation in farming, but no substantive talks on agriculture had taken place among negotiators."They have been discussing the same kind of thing since 2009 - there has been no major progress," Campbell told Thomson Reuters Foundation. He hoped a push on agriculture would be made at the annual U.N. climate conferences in the coming two years, to be held in Peru and France, so that farming could be part of a new global climate deal meant to be finalised in Paris in late 2015.Higher temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and increasingly severe weather associated with climate change are expected to have a major impact on food production around the world. Experts believe including formal discussions on agriculture in the climate talks would help ensure farmers get the information and financial help they need to try to maintain food production, especially in the face of population growth.

Campbell said the lack of international agreement on bigger climate issues - including emissions reduction targets and climate finance - is one key reason why governments are not yet prepared to start talking about agriculture.