World Agroforestry Centre's Road to Rio+20

The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) supports Rio+20’s focus on sustainable development and hopes the conference will establish a sound development basis for the rest of the 21st Century by adopting as a guide, strategies agreed upon at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), agreements from World Summit on adopting Sustainable Development (WSSD) and other high profile sustainable development meeting proceedings such as from COP17.

The Centre hopes RIO+20 will seek to position all stakeholders to collectively address current and emerging global challenges especially global food security.

According to FAO, emerging global challenges, especially food production and availability needs to increase by 70% by 2050 and England’s Chief Scientific Advisor, John Beddington, writes “The world would need to produce 50% more food and energy by 2030, Beddington writes.”

The Centre is confident that these production targets can be met sustainably by using production methods that reduce post-harvest loss while guarding against loss of biodiversity.

Sustainable agricultural practises are a good example of production methods that can intensify food production and practices regenerate extensive production systems that play an important role in the lives and livelihoods of those who depend on the landscapes.

The Centre supports Climate and Development Smart Agriculture because it ensures that adaptation strategies to climate change as well as mitigation of climate are part of food, feed, fibre and energy production by smallholder farmers. Secondly, it contains mechanisms for supporting and encouraging rural land managers to apply sustainable agricultural methods across productive landscapes and thereby helping them to take positive steps towards a Green Economy.

Our messages to RIO+20

• The future of humanity through the rest of the 21st century depends upon an integrated and sustainable intensification of agricultural production (crops, livestock, trees, fisheries and energy) to deliver consistent food, nutrition and energy and to address and overcome the negative effects of land degradation, loss of biological diversity, water scarcity and the effects of climate change.
• Sustainable intensification of agricultural production can be achieved through Climate and Development Smart Agriculture. Such agriculture achieves the necessary increases in food production and energy, builds the resilience of the underpinning ecosystem (land, water and results in biological diversity) and enables smallholder farmers to adapt to climate change while mitigating it by reducing and avoiding the emission of greenhouse gases at all land scales.
• Agroforestry is a vital component of resilient ecosystems and resilient livelihoods because it can serve as a central practice for achieving climate- and development-Smart Agriculture.

 

As a central practice, agroforestry helps;

• to increase agricultural productivity and income sources by providing food, feed, fibre, medicines and timber.
• smallholder farmers adapt to climate change by building land and soil health, and more effective water cycles and moderating micro-climates.
• by contributing to climate change mitigation through increased above- and below- ground carbon sequestration and accumulation.

The representatives note that the Zero draft of the outcome document for Rio+20 does not yet adequately incorporate agriculture and its integrative nature. They appeal to partners who are involved in negotiation of the outcome document to incorporate the following texts into the Rio+20 Zero draft, section V-Framework for action and follow-up, Part A-Priority/key/thematic/cross-sectoral issues and areas.

Food Security

No. 64: We acknowledge that the United Nations has estimated that the world will need to increase food production by 70% by 2050 to meet the demands of an expanded population and the demands for improved diets by those who have escaped from poverty. We also acknowledge that food production is being put under great pressure by losses in land productivity, water scarcity, loss of biological resources and the effects of climate change. We therefore call for a shift to “climate- and development smart” approaches to agriculture that intensify sustainable productivity while adapting to the effects of climate change, contribute to climate change mitigation by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and use water efficiently.

Water

No. 68: We recognize that agriculture is responsible for 87% of water use globally, and call for the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices that enhance land health by ensuring rain and irrigation water are not lost through evaporation and runoff. Such practices include those that ensure ground and canopy cover by diverse plantings and residue management such as the incorporation of trees into the crop and livestock management systems within productive landscapes.

Cities

No. 72: We commit to promote an integrated and holistic approach to planning and building sustainable cities through support to local authorities, efficient transportation and communication networks, greener buildings and an efficient human settlements and service delivery system, improved air and water quality, urban agriculture and sustainable local food systems, reduced waste, improved disaster preparedness and response and increased climate resilience.

Green jobs--Social Inclusion

No. 74: We also recognize that significant job creation opportunities can be availed through investments in public works for restoration and enhancement of natural capital, sustainable land and water management practices, family farming, ecological farming, organic production systems, sustainable forest management, agroforestry, rational use of biodiversity for economic purposes, and new markets linked to renewable and unconventional energy sources. We encourage business and industry to contribute to green job creation throughout their global supply chains, including through support to small and contribute to creation of green jobs medium enterprises.

Climate Change

No. 88: We reaffirm that climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time, and express an urgency to reduce its effects on developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to and are experiencing increased negative impacts from climate change, which is severely undermining food security and efforts to eradicate poverty, and also threatens the territorial integrity, viability and the very existence of small island developing states. We welcome the outcome of COP17 at Durban and look forward to the urgent implementation of all the agreements reached.No. 89: We encourage international initiatives and partnerships to address the interrelationship among water, energy, biological diversity, nutrient flows, food security and of climate change adaptation and mitigation in order to achieve synergies of integration as well as to minimize conflicts among policy objectives, being particularly sensitive to impacts on vulnerable populations.No. 90: We support policy frameworks and market instruments that effectively slow, halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation and promote the sustainable use and management of forests, trees on farms and in grazing lands as well as their conservation and restoration. We call for the urgent implementation of the “Non-Legally Binding Instrument on all Types of Forests (NLBI)”.

Land Degradation and Desertification

No. 92: We recognize that desertification results from losses in land cover, and in particular perennial plant and tree cover. We encourage efforts to increase tree cover to reduce desertification including through the expansion and integration of agroforestry and the managed regeneration of trees on farms and in landscapes.