Why is climate-smart agriculture needed?

To achieve food security and agricultural development goals, adaptation to climate change and lower emission intensities per output will be necessary. This transformation must be accomplished without depletion of the natural resource base. Climate change is already having an impact on agriculture and food security as a result of increased prevalence of extreme events and increased unpredictability of weather patterns. This can lead to reductions in production and lower incomes in vulnerable areas. Developing countries and smallholder farmers and pastoralists in particular are being especially hard hit by these changes. Many of these small-scale producers are already coping with a degraded natural resource base. They often lack knowledge about potential options for adapting their production systems and have limited assets and risk-taking capacity to access and use technologies and financial services.

Enhancing food security while contributing to mitigate climate change and preserving the natural resource base and vital ecosystem services requires the transition to agricultural production systems that are more productive, use inputs more efficiently, have less variability and greater stability in their outputs, and are more resilient to risks, shocks and long-term climate variability.

Defining the concept

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA), contributes to the achievement of sustainable development goals.

It integrates the three dimensions of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental) by jointly addressing food security and climate challenges.

It is composed of three main pillars:

1. sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and incomes;

2. adapting and building resilience to climate change;

3. reducing and/or removing greenhouse gases emissions, where possible.

CSA is not a single specific agricultural technology or practice that can be universally applied. It is an approach that requires site-specific assessments to identify suitable agricultural production technologies and practices.

CSA brings together practices, policies and institutions that are not necessarily new but are used in the context of climatic changes, which are unfamiliar to farmers, herders and fishers. What is also new is the fact that the multiple challenges faced by agriculture and food systems are addressed simultaneously and holistically, which helps avoid counterproductive policies, legislation or financing.

CSA implementation and the role of the sourcebook

The purpose of the sourcebook is to further elaborate the concept of CSA and demonstrate its potential, as well as limitations. It aims to help decision makers at a number of levels (including political administrators and natural resource managers) to understand the different options that are available for planning, policies and investments and the practices that are suitable for making different agricultural sectors, landscapes and food systems more climate-smart. This sourcebook is a reference tool for planners, practitioners and policy makers working in agriculture, forestry and fisheries at national and subnational levels. The sourcebook indicates some of the necessary ingredients required to achieve a climate-smart approach to the agricultural sectors, including existing options and barriers.

This sourcebook is divided into three main sections, which addresses the main following topics:

• Section A “the case for climate-smart agriculture” consists of two modules establishing a conceptual framework and is targeted to a broad audience. Module 1 explains the rationale for CSA and module 2 focuses on the adoption of a landscape approach.

• Section B “improved technologies and approaches for sustainable Farm Management” is divided in nine Modules. It is targeted primarily to the needs of planners and practitioners and analyzes what issues need to be addressed in the different sectors, in terms of water (Module 3), soils (Module 4), energy (Module 5) and genetic resources (Module 6) for up-scaling of practices of crop production (Module 7), livestock (Module 8), forestry (Module 9) and fisheries and aquaculture (Module 10) along sustainable and inclusive food value chains (Module 11).

• Section C “enabling frameworks” encompasses seven Modules, targeted to policy makers, providing guidance on what institutional (Module 12), policy (Module 13) and finance (Module 14) options are available. It further provides information on links with disaster risk reduction (Module 15) and utilization of safety nets (Module 16) and also illustrates the key role of capacity development (Module 17) and assessments and monitoring (Module 18).