Prepared by Wendy Mann for:

Meridian Institute workshop on Climate Change and Agriculture:

Learning from Experience and Early Interventions

Rome, 22-23 October 2012

Climate-Smart Agriculture at country level:

lessons from recent experience

1

Background

Duration: 1 January 2012 - 31 December 2014.

Resources: A total of 5.3 million Euros (3.3 million

Euros from EC, 2 million from FAO)

Partner countries: Malawi, Vietnam and Zambia

Type of project: country readiness to scale-up

through capacity strengthening

2

What does climate-smart agriculture

mean for FAO

Holistic approach to Food Security, Agricultural

development and Climate Change

Sustainable agriculture, expanded to include:

imperative for climate change adaptation

potential for mitigation and related climate

finance

integration/coordination across institutions and policy

instruments

Not just mitigation, single blueprint, markets

3

What does the project aim to

achieve? (Objective)

Strengthened capacity of farmers, their organizations

and policy-makers to make evidence-informed

investment decisions on scaling-up:

(1) context-specific climate-smart agricultural

practices

(2) supportive policy, institutional, strategic and

investment frameworks to promote sustainable

agricultural development and food security under

climate change, including those to overcome

adoption barriers and manage risk.

How will the project do this?

4

•Increased capacity to scale up and finance climate

smart agriculture

OUTPUTS RESEARCH COMPONENT NEEDS

•What are the barriers to adoption of CSA practices

•What are the policy levers to facilitate adoption and what will they cost?

•What are the synergies and tradeoffs between food security, adaptation and

mitigation from ag. practices?

POLICY SUPPORT COMPONENT

• Identifying where policy coordination at the national level is needed and how

to do it

• Facilitating national participation/inputs to climate and ag

international policy process

Project Framework

Evidence Base

Strategic Framework

Investment proposals

Capacity

Building

5

Evidence base

1. Socio-economic, land use, climate data,

institutional, policy, project mapping, costs and

benefits of action.

2. Baseline (current, baseline or business-as-usual

agricultural development pathway, alternative or

CSA development pathway)

3. Costs and benefits of action

6

Some uses of evidence base

Promising practices: agro-forestry with and without CA;

fertilizer use efficiency; legume rotations, replace annuals

with perennials, diversification in crops, rotations,

intercropping

Adoption barriers: limited, late, unreliable input supply,

delayed returns; opportunity cost of residue, labor

constraints, CC driven uncertainty/risk affects

Managing risk: use of existing instruments (Cash Transfers,

Insurance and modeling efficiency/costs of alternative

instruments

Building coherent policies within existing policy instruments;

across key institutions

Guiding investments: assessing additional CC benefits

(adaptation and mitigation); additional investment costs,

potential to link climate finance

7

Country-owned strategic frameworks

for CSA

1. Draws on existing policy and investment instruments

(ASWAp, CAADP, Action Plan, NCP)

2. If ag-cc strategy already exists, use it, strengthen. If

multiple strategies exist, consider roadmap.

3. Should help to identify vision and action required.

8

Investment Proposals for

Implementation

1. Priorities for action

2. Resources needed for action

3. Metrics to show what are additional CC

costs/benefits and results

3. Possible sources of financing, including climate

finance

9

Capacity strengthening

1. Research institutions and universities; support

for MSc and PhD students

2. Local institutions: extension, land tenure, chiefs

3. National institutions:

planning, inter-ministerial

Ag, Env, Fin - dialogues

(participatory scenario

building tool),

4. Ag Ministry staff

attend UNFCCC Talks

5. Stakeholder consultation, interactive web-based

platform

10 10

Zambia: building the evidence base

on barriers to adoption

Econometric analysis of barriers to adoption of CA

indicate that:

• Low adoption (and high “dis-adoption”) of CA between 2004-

2008

• Rainfall variability and extension service most important

determinants of adoption

• Possible trade-offs between keeping oxen and CA adoption.

• Preliminary mapping of the onset of rainy season showing

historical trend of later starts in most parts of the country

• Further work is needed to understand why these

adoption/disadoption patterns occurred.

11

Malawi: Building the evidence base on marginal costs of agricultural-based mitigation

13

-300

-250

-200

-150

-100

-50

0

50

100

150

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000

$/t

CO

2e

t CO2e abated/year

1. agronomy_dry

2. Integrated nutrient

management _dry

3. Tillage/residue

mgmt_dry

4. Integrated nutrient

management_moist

5. Tillage/residue

mgmt_moist

6. agronomy_moist

7. agroforestry_dry

8. agroforestry_moist

9. water mgmt_dry

10. water mgmt_moist

Building linkages

Slow progress in UNFCCC negotiations on agric.

• shifts attention to country level action.

• more time to build confidence, capacity and

experience through learning-by-doing

• more time for national implementation to shape

int’l decision-making, esp. design of enabling

mechanisms and partnership arrangements.

14

THANK YOU!