Independent Dialogue
Accelerating the transition towards sustainable Agri-Food Systems in the context of Climate Change: the contribution of the Climate-Smart Agriculture approach
Geographical focus:
No borders
Discussion topic outcome
3. Climate-smart livestock and crops practices Key questions: What are the obstacles/barriers that prevent the adoption and wide spreading of CSA practices in livestock and crop farming systems? How policy and governance could facilitate the overcoming of these barriers? Can you share today some good examples of projects/case studies where these barriers have been overcome? How can livestock and crop sectors be more interconnected and build synergies between them (such as with a circular economy perspective)? Answers by participants: • Lack of awareness of various type of stakeholders, in pr... Read moreimis the governance and the farmers, on CSA practices and the benefits that they can bring to local level. This barrier can be overcome through the implementation of dedicated trainings and capacity building activities addressed to specific categories of stakeholders. • Lack of exchanges between the research sector and the local governance, for instance with reference to the adoption of improved varieties obtained from breeding to face climate change. Local research centres have already produced new varieties resistant to drought. Nevertheless, these new varieties are not available to farmers due to the lack of intervention from the local government. The seeds of these improved varieties shall be made available and accessible to farmers. To overcome this barrier, it is important for farmers to organize them in consortia and associations. • Lack of knowledge, education and capacities of farmers about these practices, especially in the case of indigenous people. This condition is further worsened by a lack of affordability of input and means used to implement the CSA practices. • The price of agricultural produce is not stable on local market and this could expose farmers to financial risks. To overcome these barriers an intervention from local authorities is required to improve the access of farmers to inputs (e.g. seeds of improved varieties, machinery fleet) and technologies needed to implement CSA practices. Most of the times the very limited size of local farms prevents the adoption of CSA practices, because these requires to switch to new tools and technologies, with unsustainable depreciation of investment cost. Experience of FAO in Sudan and South Sudan: • Lack of knowledge of local authorities about CSA practices constitute the main obstacle to the adoption of these practices by local farmers. • lack of community engagement in the implementation of CSA project: this component is absolutely needed to succeed in mainstreaming CSA practices at local level, as well as the enhanced accessibility to improved varieties and sustainable livestock trade. Consortia and farmers producers organizations can play a key role to improve the access of farmers to the market. • Lack of infrastructures and to the long distance existing from the livestock raising place to the market place. • The lack of access to the market prevent farmers to achieve good economic return from their activities: they are obliged to sell their product in the village, where other farmers do the same activities and produce the same type of product, and this reduce the value of the produce on the market. Policy and decision makers can play a key role to facilitate the overcoming of barriers, but first of all they need to develop a wide and deep knowledge of the local environmental, social, economic conditions, including type of soil, traditional practices, local challenges, such as conflicts. He explained that the adoption of CSA practices both in the livestock and in the cropping farms must be adapted and fine-tuned to the local context. Experience from Viet Nam: • Need to consider the agricultural and livestock value chain in a circular economy perspective. Farmers should be enabled to make the best use of the waste and residues produced from their activities. Good practices implemented in Viet Nam: each livestock farm, even if having a reduced size, is equipped with an anaerobic digester which allows to produce clean energy for cooking and, at in case of farms of bigger size, also energy to power local houses or water pumping for agricultural purposes. Read less
Action Track(s): 3, 4, 5
Keywords: Environment and Climate, Governance, Innovation, Policy, Trade-offs, Women & Youth Empowerment