Climate Action 2010-2011

Ecosystem based adaptation
In the arid Syrian steppe zone or Badia, IFAD is
working with local communities to reduce herders’
vulnerability to climate change and restore the longterm
productivity of rangelands after years of severe
drought and intensive grazing. By reintroducing native
plants that help meet fodder requirements, fixing the
soil and stopping sand encroachment, ecosystems have
been restored and the local population’s vulnerability
to the effects of climatic instability reduced. After two
years of resting, reseeding and planting, birds, insects
and animals returned to the area contributing to
ecosystem restoration, see Figure 1.
community has come to clarity on the point that healthy
ecosystems underpin sustainable development.
However, the Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in
2007 warned us that the resilience of many ecosystems
to changes in climate could be surpassed within our
lifetimes. This represents a huge threat for agriculture.
For temperature increases exceeding 1.5 – 2.5°C, about
20-30 per cent of plant and animal species will be at
increased risk of extinction and major changes in the
ecosystem are predicted in the medium and long term.
Even in the near future, agriculture will take place
under significantly changed environmental conditions.
For developing countries, particularly Africa, it will
require producing more under less favourable conditions.
In all cases, it will require dealing with more uncertainties.
In a few decades, the world could see more food insecurity
and hunger crises, more conflicts over scarce natural
resources, and more displacement and migration. If we
don’t adopt climate-resilient agriculture now, any gains we
make will be compromised.
As the custodians of natural resources, smallholders’
engagement in ecosystem-based adaptation is key in
promoting sustainable agriculture programmes. The
involvement of grassroots organisations, community
groups, women and young people in planning and
managing the natural resources that sustain agriculture is
essential for an ecosystems approach.
Leaving the ‘trade-off ’ mentality behind
Once we understand that making agriculture climate
resilient is also about protecting and enhancing
ecosystem services, we come to an important conclusion:
the choice between reducing poverty, adapting to climate
change, feeding the world or protecting the environment
is a false one. What we need, in the words of Professor
Swaminathan, is an ‘evergreen’ revolution powered by
sustainable agriculture that balances inputs with crop
needs so that surplus inputs are avoided and soil fertility
and the ecosystem are not compromised, and 21st century
technology that will simultaneously achieve all of these
objectives and include smallholder farmers.
The challenge that we now face is to scale up the right
sustainable practices in the right places, and to ensure
that smallholder farmers can adopt them and benefit
from them.
Start by scaling up the ‘no-regrets’ actions
There is a range of proven agricultural practices and
technologies ready to be deployed at scale to limit the
negative effects of climate change and provide substantive
development gains. Balanced-input agriculture, for
example, makes the most efficient use of seeds and
fertiliser, land and water, energy and labour. Great strides
are being made to bring cropland, rangeland and woodland
under sustainable land management (SLM) approaches
that are grounded in community empowerment, including
land tenure rights, and efficient use of natural resources.
Conservation agriculture techniques are also showing real
promise for scalable methods of production and ‘green’
approaches in land use and preservation.
Agro-forestry and other
integrated agricultural
approaches provide improved
vehicles for dealing with
complexity and change.
Technologies ready for scale up include tolerant/
resistant crop varieties based on drought or heat, salt,
insects or pests, and improved seeds, all of which provide
potential for increasing yields and improving the
resilience of livelihoods across regions.
Agro-forestry and other integrated agricultural
approaches provide improved vehicles for dealing with
complexity and change – and we have seen them make
a difference on the ground through better irrigation,
fisheries management and infrastructure that achieve
development and poverty reduction objectives and build
climate resilience.
We are ready to do more of all of this, at scale.
Support new technologies for longterm
challenges
In the face of long-term climate challenges, we know that
today’s knowledge and technologies won’t be enough.
IFAD therefore supports promising technologies that
are new to the market but still require promotion and
piloting. In development jargon, they are more ‘knowledgeintensive’
– which means that farmers need training in how
and why to use them and incentives to adopt them, while
governments need support in formulating policies that
provide those incentives either directly or through markets.
Value traditional knowledge to
strengthen resilience
New technology is important, but one weakness of the
first Green Revolution was that it overlooked the value
of traditional knowledge and the seed varieties held by
farmers. Promoting, revitalising and scaling up existing
local and traditional knowledge on crop management
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