state of the world 2009 - carbon negative · 2009-02-23 · reducing soil erosion, improving soil...

T H E WO R L DWAT C H I N S T I T U T ET H E WO R L DWAT C H I N S T I T U T E

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Into a Warming WorldInto a Warming World

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For more than a decade, thousands of low-income farmers in northern Mindanao, thePhilippines, who grow crops on steep, defor-ested slopes, have joined landcare groups toboost food production and incomes whilereducing soil erosion, improving soil fertility,and protecting local watersheds. They leftstrips of natural vegetation to terrace theirslopes, enriched their soils, and planted fruitand timber trees for income. And their com-munities began conserving the remainingforests in the area, home to a rich but threat-ened biodiversity. Yet these farmers achievedeven more—their actions not only enrichedtheir landscapes and enhanced food security,they also helped to “cool” the planet by cut-ting greenhouse gas emissions and storingcarbon in soils and vegetation. If their actionscould be repeated by millions of rural com-munities around the world, climate changewould slow down.1

Indeed, climate change and global food

security are inextricably linked. This was madeabundantly clear in 2008, as rioters fromHaiti to Cameroon protested the global “foodcrisis.” The crisis partly reflected structuralincreases in food demand from growing andmore-affluent populations in developingcountries and short-term market failures, butit was also in part a reaction to increasedenergy costs, new biofuel markets created bylegislation promoting alternative energy, andclimate-induced regional crop losses. More-over, food and fiber production are leadingsources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emis-sions—they have a much larger “climate foot-print” than the transportation sector, forexample. Degradation and loss of forests andother vegetative cover puts the carbon cyclefurther off balance. Ironically, the land usesand management systems that are accelerat-ing GHG emissions are also underminingthe ecosystem services upon which long-termfood and fiber production depend—healthy

C H A P T E R 3

Sara J. Scherr and Sajal Sthapit

Farming and Land Useto Cool the Planet

Sara J. Scherr is President and CEO of Ecoagriculture Partners (EP) in Washington, DC. Sajal Sthapitis a Program Associate at EP.

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watersheds, pollination, and soil fertility.2This chapter explains why actions on cli-

mate change must include agriculture andland systems and highlights some promisingways to “cool the planet” via land usechanges. Indeed, there are huge opportuni-ties to shift food and forestry production sys-tems as well as conservation area managementto mitigate climate change in ways that alsoincrease sustainability, improve rural incomes,and ease adaptation to a warming world.

The Need for Climate Actionon Agriculture and Land Use

Land is one fourth of Earth’s surface and itholds three times as much carbon as theatmosphere does. About 1,600 billion tons ofthis carbon is in the soil as organic matter andsome 540–610 billion tons is in living vege-tation. Although the volume of carbon onEarth’s surface and in the atmosphere palesin comparison to the many trillions of tonsstored deep under the surface as sediments,sedimentary rocks, and fossil fuels, surfacecarbon is crucial to climate change and lifedue to its inherent mobility.3

Surface carbon moves from the atmos-phere to the land and back, and in thisprocess it drives the engine of life on theplanet. Plants use carbon dioxide (CO2) fromthe atmosphere to grow and produce foodand resources that sustain the rest of thebiota. When these organisms breathe, grow,die, and eventually decompose, carbon isreleased to the atmosphere and the soil. Car-bon from this past life provides the fuel fornew life. Indeed, life depends on this har-monized movement of carbon from one sinkto another. Large-scale disruption or changeson land drastically alter the harmonious move-ment of carbon.

Land use changes and fossil fuel burningare the two major sources of the increased

CO2 in the atmosphere that is changing theglobal climate. (See Box 3–1.) Burning fos-sil fuel releases carbon that has been buriedfor millions of years, while deforestation,intensive tillage, and overgrazing release car-bon from living or recently living plants andsoil organic matter. Some land use changesaffect climate by altering regional precipita-tion patterns, as is occurring now in the Ama-zon and Volta basins. Overall, land use andland use changes account for around 31 per-cent of total human-induced greenhouse gasemissions into the atmosphere. Yet othertypes of land use can play the opposite role.Growing plants can remove huge amounts ofcarbon from the atmosphere and store it invegetation and soils in ways that not onlystabilize the climate but also benefit foodand fiber production and the environment. Soit is imperative that any climate change mit-igation strategy address this sector.4

Extensive action to influence land use isalso going to be essential to sustain foodand forest production in the face of climatechange. Agricultural systems have developedduring a time of relatively predictable localweather patterns. The choice of crops andvarieties, the timing of input application,vulnerability to pests and diseases, the tim-ing of management practices—all these areclosely linked to temperature and rainfall.With climate changing, production condi-tions will change—and quite radically insome places—which will lead to major shiftsin farming systems.

Climate scenarios for 2020 predict that inMexico, for example, 300,000 hectares willbecome unsuitable for maize production,leading to estimated yearly losses of $140million and immense socioeconomic disrup-tion. And in North America, the areas with theoptimum temperature for producing syrupfrom maple trees are shifting northward, leav-ing farmers in the state of Vermont at risk of

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Farming and Land Use to Cool the Planet

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yearly. Once it disappears, the Ganges willbecome a seasonal river, depriving 40 per-cent of India’s irrigated cropland and some400 million people of water. The frequency,intensity, and duration of rainfall are also likely

losing not only their signature product butgenerations of culture and knowledge.5

The Gangotri glacier in the Himalayas,which provides up to 70 percent of the waterin the Ganges River, is retreating 35 meters

Land Use Annual Emissions Greenhouse Gas Emitted

(million tons CO2 equivalent)

Agriculture 6,500

Soil fertilization (inorganic fertilizers andapplied manure) 2,100 Nitrous oxide*

Gases from food digestion in cattle (entericfermentation in rumens) 1,800 Methane*

Biomass burning 700 Methane, nitrous oxide*

Paddy (flooded) rice production (anaerobicdecomposition) 600 Methane*

Livestock manure 400 Methane, nitrous oxide*

Other (e.g., delivery of irrigation water) 900 Carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide*

Deforestation (including peat) 8,500

For agriculture or livestock 5,900 Carbon dioxide

Total 15,000

* The greenhouse gas impact of 1 unit of nitrous oxide is equivalent to 298 units of carbon dioxide; 1 unit ofmethane is equivalent to 25 units of carbon dioxide.

Source: See endnote 4.

Carbon dioxide (77 percent), nitrous oxide (8percent), and methane (14 percent) are the threemain greenhouse gases that trap infrared radia-tion and contribute to climate change. Land usechanges contribute to the release of all three ofthese greenhouse gases. (SeeTable.) Of the totalannual human-induced GHG emissions in 2004of 49 billion tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent,roughly 31 percent—15 billion tons—was fromland use. By comparison, fossil fuel burningaccounts for 27.7 billion tons of CO2-equivalentemissions annually.

Deforestation and devegetation release car-bon in two ways. First the decay of the plant mat-ter itself releases carbon dioxide. Second, soilexposed to the elements is more prone to ero-

sion. Subsequent land uses like agriculture andgrazing exacerbate soil erosion and exposure.The atmosphere oxidizes the soil carbon, releas-ing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.Application of nitrogenous fertilizers leads tosoils releasing nitrous oxide. Methane is releasedfrom the rumens of livestock like cattle, goats,and sheep when they eat and from manure andwater-logged rice plantations.

Naturally occurring forest and grass firesalso contribute significantly to GHG emissions.In the El Niño year of 1997–98, fires accountedfor 2.1 billion tons of carbon emissions . Due tothe unpredictability of these events, annual emis-sions from this source vary from year to year.

Box 3–1.Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Land Use







ply chains, could have significant success inslowing climate change.

Making Agriculture andLand Use Climate-friendly

and Climate-resilient

An agricultural landscape should simultane-ously provide food and fiber, meet the needsof nature and biodiversity, and support viablelivelihoods for people who live there. In termsof climate change, landscape and farmingsystems should actively absorb and store car-bon in vegetation and soils, reduce emissionsof methane from rice production, livestock,and burning, and reduce nitrous oxide emis-sions from inorganic fertilizers. At the sametime, it is important to increase the resilienceof production systems and ecosystem ser-vices to climate change.8

Many techniques are already available toachieve climate-friendly landscapes. None isa “silver bullet,” but in combinations thatmake sense locally they can help the worldmove decisively forward. This chapterdescribes five strategies that are especiallypromising: enriching soil carbon, creatinghigh-carbon cropping systems, promotingclimate-friendly livestock production sys-tems, protecting existing carbon stores innatural forests and grasslands, and restoringvegetation in degraded areas. (See Figure3–1.) Many other improvements will alsobe needed for production systems to adapt toclimate change while meeting growing foodneeds and commercial demands, such asadapted seed varieties. But these five strate-gies are highlighted because of their power-ful advantage in mitigating climate change aswell as contributing broadly to more-sus-tainable production systems and other ecosys-tem services.9

Moreover, these strategies can help mobi-

to change, increasing production risks, espe-cially in semiarid and arid rainfed productionareas. Monsoons will be heavier, more variable,and with greater risk of flooding. An increasedincidence of drought threatens nearly 2 billionpeople who rely on livestock grazing for partof their livelihoods, particularly the 200 mil-lion who are completely dependent on pastoralsystems. The incidence and intensity of nat-ural fires is predicted to increase. 6

The poorest farmers who have little insur-ance against these calamities often live andfarm in areas prone to natural disasters. More-frequent extreme events will create both ahumanitarian and a food crisis.

On the other hand, climatic conditionsmay improve in some places. In the high-lands of East Africa, for example, rains maybecome more reliable and growing seasons forsome crops may expand. The growing seasonin northern latitudes in Canada and Russiawill extend as temperatures rise. Even in thesesituations, however, there will be high costsfor adapting to new conditions, includingfinding crop varieties and management thatare adapted to new climate regimes at this lat-itude. The impacts on pest and diseaseregimes are largely unknown and could off-set any benefits. For instance, the Easternspruce budworm is a serious pest defoliatingNorth American forests. Changing climate isshifting the geographic range of the warblersthat feed on the budworms, increasing theodds for budworm outbreak.7

Many of the key strategies described inthis chapter for agricultural, forest, and otherland use systems to mitigate climate change—that is, to reduce GHG emissions or increasethe storage of carbon in production and nat-ural systems—also will help rural communi-ties adapt to that change. Mobilizing actionfor adaptation in these directions rather thanrelying only on other types of interventions,such as seed varieties or shifts in market sup-

more time-consuming or costly yet offer noparticular benefits to farmers or land man-agers, and invest in the development of tech-nologies and management systems that areespecially promising but not yet ready forwidespread use.

Enriching Soil CarbonSoil has four components: minerals, water, air,and organic materials—both nonliving andliving. The former comes from dead plant,animal, and microbial matter while the livingorganic material is from flora and fauna of thesoil biota, including living roots and microbes.Together, living and nonliving organic mate-rials account for only 1–6 percent of the soil’svolume, but they contribute much more to its

lize a broad political coalition to support cli-mate action by meeting the urgent needs offarmers, grazers and rural communities, thefood industry, urban water users, resource-dependent industries, and conservation orga-nizations. They can help meet not onlyclimate goals but also internationally agreedMillennium Development Goals and otherglobal environmental conventions.

Many of these approaches will be eco-nomically self-sustaining once initial invest-ments are made. It is important to implementthis agenda on a large scale in order to havesignificant impacts on the climate. Key rolesthat governments need to play are to mobi-lize the financing and social organizationneeded for these initial investments, developadditional incentives for activities that are

Degraded soils are revegetated,producing biochar; fertile soilsremain productive using organicmethods and reducing tillage.

Retaining forests and grasslandsmaintains carbon sinks whileprotecting watersheds.

Perennials, tree crops, andother agroforestry methodsretain greater biomass inthe cropping system.

Rotational grazing minimizeslivestock impacts; biogasdigesters turn waste intoenergy and organic fertilizer.

Figure 3–1.Multiple Strategies to Productively Absorb and Store Carbonin Agricultural Landscapes







increased soil carbon by 15–28 percent andnitrogen content by 8–15 percent. Theresearchers concluded that if the 65 millionhectares of corn and soybean grown in theUnited States were switched to organic farm-ing, a quarter of a billion tons of carbondioxide could be sequestered.13

The economics and productivity implica-tions of these methods vary widely. In somevery intensive, high-yield cropping systems,replacing some or all inorganic fertilizer mayrequire methods that use more labor orrequire costlier inputs, but there is commonlyscope for much more efficient use of fertilizerthrough better targeting and timing. In mod-erately intensive systems, the use of organicnutrient sources with small amounts of sup-plemental inorganic fertilizer can be quitecompetitive and attractive to farmers seekingto reduce cash costs.14

Improvements in organic technologiesover the past few decades have led to com-parable levels of productivity across a widerange of crops and farming systems. Thequestion of whether organic farming can feedthe world, as some claim, remains contro-versial. And more research is needed to under-stand the potentials and limitations ofbiologically based soil nutrient managementsystems across the range of soil types and cli-matic conditions. But there is little questionthat farmers in many production systems canalready profitably maintain yields while usingmuch less nitrogen fertilizer—and with majorclimate benefits.

Minimize soil tillage. Soil used to growcrops is commonly tilled to improve the con-ditions of the seed bed and to uproot weeds.But tilling turns the soil upside down, expos-ing anaerobic microbes to oxygen and suf-focating aerobic microbes by working themunder. This disturbance exposes nonlivingorganic matter to oxygen, releasing carbondioxide. Keeping crop residues or mulch on

productivity. The organic materials retain airand water in the soil and provide nutrientsthat the plants and the soil fauna depend onfor life. They are also reservoirs of carbon inthe soil.10

In fact, soil is the third largest carbon poolon the planet. In the long term, agriculturalpractices that amend soil carbon from year toyear through organic matter managementrather than depleting it will provide produc-tive soils that are rich in carbon and requirefewer chemical inputs. New mapping tools,such as the 2008 Global Carbon Gap Mapproduced by the Food and Agriculture Orga-nization, can identify areas where soil car-bon storage is greatest and areas with thephysical potential for billions of tons of addi-tional carbon to be stored in degraded soils.11

Enhance soil nutrients through organicmethods. Current use of inorganic fertilizersis estimated at 102 million tons worldwide,with use concentrated in industrial countriesand in irrigated regions of developing nations.Soils with nitrogen fertilizers release nitrousoxide, a greenhouse gas that has about 300times the warming capacity of carbon diox-ide. Fertilized soils release more than 2 billiontons (in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent)of greenhouse gases every year. One promis-ing strategy to reduce emissions is to adoptsoil fertility management practices thatincrease soil organic matter and siphon car-bon from the atmosphere.12

Numerous technologies can be used tosubstitute or minimize the need for inor-ganic fertilizers. Examples include compost-ing, green manures, nitrogen-fixing covercrops and intercrops, and livestock manures.Even improved fertilizer application methodscan reduce emissions. In one example oforganic farming, a 23-year experiment by theRodale Institute compared organic and con-ventional cropping systems in the UnitedStates and found that organic farming




option to buy time while alternative energysystems develop.17

Incorporate biochar. Decomposition ofplant matter is one way of enriching soil car-bon if it takes place securely within the soil;decomposition on the surface, on the otherhand, releases carbon into the atmosphere ascarbon dioxide. In the humid tropics, forexample, organic matter breaks down rapidly,reducing the carbon storage benefits oforganic systems. Another option, recentlydiscovered, is to incorporate biochar—burned biomass in a low-oxygen environ-ment. This keeps carbon in soil longer andreleases the nutrients slowly over a longperiod of time. While the burning doesrelease some carbon dioxide, the remainingcarbon-rich dark aromatic matter is highlystable in soil. Hence planting fast-growingtrees in previously barren or degraded areas,converting them to biochar, and adding themto soil is a quick way of taking carbon fromthe atmosphere and turning it into an organicslow-release fertilizer that benefits both theplant and the soil fauna.

Interestingly, between 500 and 2,500 yearsago Amerindian populations added incom-pletely burnt biomass to the soil. Today, Ama-zonian Dark Earths still retain high amountsof organic carbon and fertility in stark contrastto the low fertility of adjacent soils. There isa global production potential of 594 milliontons of carbon dioxide equivalent in biocharper year, simply by using waste materials suchas forest and milling residues, rice husks,groundnut shells, and urban waste. Far morecould be generated by planting and convert-ing trees. Initial analyses suggest that it couldbe quite economical to plant vegetation forbiochar on idle and degraded lands, thoughnot on more highly productive lands.18

Most crops respond with improved yieldsfor biochar additions of up to 183 tons of car-bon dioxide equivalent and can tolerate more

the surface helps soil retain moisture, preventserosion, and returns carbon to the soilthrough decomposition. Hence practices thatreduce tillage also generally reduce carbonemissions.15

A variety of conservation tillage practicesaccomplish this goal. In nonmechanized sys-tems, farmers might use digging sticks toplant seeds and can manage weeds throughmulch and hand-weeding. Special mecha-nized systems have been developed that drillthe seed through the vegetative layer and useherbicides to manage weeds. Many farmerscombine no-till with crop rotations and greenmanure crops. In Paraná, Brazil, farmers havedeveloped organic management systems com-bined with no-till. No-till plots yielded a thirdmore wheat and soybean than conventionallyploughed plots and reduced soil erosion by upto 90 percent. No-till has the additional ben-efit of reducing labor and fossil fuel use andenhancing soil biodiversity—all while cyclingnutrients and storing carbon.16

Worldwide, approximately 95 millionhectares of cropland are under no-till man-agement—a figure that is growing rapidly,particularly as rising fossil fuel prices increasethe cost of tillage. The actual net impacts ongreenhouse gases of reduced emissions andincreased carbon storage from reduced tillagedepend significantly on associated practices,such as the level of vegetative soil cover andthe impact of tillage on crop root develop-ment, which depends on the specific cropand soil type. It is projected that the carbonstorage benefits of no-till may plateau over thenext 50 years, but this can be a cost-effective

In Paraná, Brazil, no-till plots yielded athird more wheat and soybean thanconventionally ploughed plots andreduced soil erosion by up to 90 percent.




But achieving a high-carbon cropping sys-tem, as well as the year-round vegetativecover required to sustain soils, watersheds,and habitats, will require diversification andthe incorporation of a far greater share ofperennial plants.21

Perennial grains. Currently two thirdsof all arable land is used to grow annualgrains. This production depends on tilling,preparing seed beds, and applying chemicalinputs. Every year the process starts overagain from scratch. This makes productionmore dependent on chemical inputs, whichalso require a lot of fossil fuels to produce.Furthermore, excessive application of nitro-gen fertilizer is a major source of nitrousoxide emissions, as noted earlier.22

In contrast, perennial grasses retain astrong root network between growing sea-sons. Hence, a good amount of the living bio-mass remains in the soil instead of beingreleased as greenhouse gases. And they helphold soil organic matter and water together,reducing soil erosion and GHG emissions.Finally, the perennial nature of these grassesdoes away with the need for annual tilling thatreleases GHGs and causes soil erosion, and italso makes the grasses more conservative inthe use of nutrients. In one U.S. case, forexample, harvested native hay meadowsretained 179 tons of carbon and 12.5 tons ofnitrogen in a hectare of soil, while annualwheat fields only retained 127 tons of carbonand 9.6 tons of nitrogen. This was despite thefact that the annual wheat fields had received70 kilograms of nitrogen fertilizer per hectareannually for years.23

Researchers have already developed peren-nial relatives of cereals (rice, sorghum, andwheat), forages (intermediate wheatgrass,rye), and oilseeds (sunflower). In Washing-ton state, some wheat varieties that havealready been bred yield over 70 percent asmuch as commercial wheat. Domestication

without declining productivity. Advocatescalculate that if biochar additions were appliedat this rate on just 10 percent of the world’scropland (about 150 million hectares), thismethod could store 29 billion tons of CO2-equivalent, offsetting nearly all the emissionsfrom fossil fuel burning.19

Creating High-carbonCropping Systems

Plants harness the energy of the sun andaccumulate carbon from the atmosphere toproduce biomass on which the rest of thebiota depend. The great innovation of agri-culture 10,000 years ago was to manage thephotosynthesis of plants and ecosystems so asto dependably increase yields. With 5 billionhectares of Earth’s surface used for agricul-ture (69 percent under pasture and 28 per-cent in crops) in 2002, and with half a billionmore hectares expected by 2020, agriculturalproduction systems and landscapes have tonot only deliver food and fiber but also sup-port biodiversity and important ecosystemservices, including climate change mitiga-tion. A major strategy for achieving this is toincrease the role of perennial crops, shrubs,trees, and palms, so that carbon is absorbedand stored in the biomass of roots, trunks, andbranches while crops are being produced.Tree crops and agroforestry maintain signif-icantly higher biomass than clear-weeded,annually tilled crops.20

Although more than 3,000 edible plantspecies have been identified, 80 percent ofworld cropland is dominated by just 10annual cereal grains, legumes, and oilseeds.Wheat, rice, and maize cover half of theworld’s cropland. Since annual crops needto be replanted every year and since themajor grains are sensitive to shade, farmersin much of the world have graduallyremoved other vegetation from their fields.




in agricultural systems in forest ecosystemsand is being newly introduced into present-day subsistence and commercial systems. Thehighest carbon storage results are found in“multistory” agroforestry systems that havemany diverse species using ecological“niches” from the high canopy to bottom-story shade-tolerant crops. Examples areshade-grown coffee and cocoa plantations,where cash crops are grown under a canopyof trees that sequester carbon and providehabitats for wildlife. Simple intercrops areused where tree-crop competition is minimalor where the value of tree crops is greaterthan the value of the intercropped annuals orgrazing areas, or as a means to reduce mar-ket risks. Where crops are adversely affectedby competition for light or water, trees maybe grown in small plots in mosaics with crops.Research is also under way to develop low-light-tolerant crop varieties. And in the Sahel,some native trees and crops have comple-mentary growth patterns, avoiding light com-petition all together.25

While agroforestry systems have a lowercarbon storage potential per hectare thanstanding forests do, they can potentially beadopted on hundreds of millions of hectares.And because of the diverse benefits they offer,it is often more economical for farmers toestablish and retain them. A Billion TreeCampaign to promote agroforestry waslaunched at the U.N. climate conventionmeeting in Nairobi in 2006. Within a year anda half the program had shattered initial expec-tations and mobilized the planting of 2 bil-lion trees in more than 150 countries. Halfthe plantings occurred in Africa, with 700 mil-lion in Ethiopia alone. By taking the leadfrom farmers and communities on the choiceof species, planting location, and manage-ment, and by providing adequate technicalsupport to ensure high-quality planting mate-rials and methods, these initiatives can ensure

work is under way for a number of lesserknown perennial native grasses, and manymore perennials offer unique and excitingopportunities.24

Shifting production systems from annualto perennial grains should be an importantresearch priority for agriculture and cropbreeding, but significant research challengesremain. Breeding perennial crops takes longerthan annuals due to longer generation times.Since annuals live for one season only, theygive priority to seeds over vegetative growth,making yield improvement in annuals easierthan in perennials that have to allocate moreresources to vegetative parts like roots inorder to ensure survival through the winter.But in the quest for high-carbon agriculturalsystems, plants that produce more biomass area plus. Through breeding, it may also bepossible to redirect increased biomass contentto seed production.

Agroforestry intercrops. Another methodof increasing carbon in agriculture is agro-forestry, in which productive trees are plantedin and around crop fields and pastures. Thetree species may provide products (fruits,nuts, medicines, fuel, timber, and so on),farm production benefits (such as nitrogen fix-ation for crop fertility, wind protection forcrops or animals, and fodder for animals),and ecosystem services (habitat for wild pol-linators of crops, for example, or micro-cli-mate improvement). The trees or otherperennials in agroforestry systems sequesterand store carbon, improving the carbon con-tent of the agricultural landscape.

Agroforestry was common traditionally

A BillionTree Campaign launched in2006 shattered initial expectationsand mobilized the planting of 2 billiontrees in more than 150 countries.




lyptus in some dry areas of Ethiopia.28

Shifting biofuel production from annualcrops (which often have a net negative impacton GHG emissions due to cultivation, fertil-ization, and fossil fuel use) to perennial alter-natives like switchgrass offers a major newopportunity to use degraded or low-produc-tivity areas for economically valuable cropswith positive ecosystem impacts. But this willrequire a landscape approach to biofuels plan-ning in order to use resources sustainably,enhance overall carbon intensity in the land-scape, and complement other key land usesand ecosystem services.29

Promoting Climate-friendlyLivestock Production

Domestic livestock—cattle, pigs, sheep, goats,poultry, donkeys, and so on—account formost of the total living animal biomass world-wide. A revolution in livestock product con-sumption is under way as developing countriesadopt western diets. Meat consumption inChina, for example, more than doubled in thepast 20 years and is projected to double againby 2030. This trend has triggered the rise ofhuge feedlots and confined dairies aroundmost cities and the clearing of huge areas ofland for low-intensity grazing. Livestock alsoproduce prodigious quantities of greenhousegases: methane (from fermentation of food inthe largest part of an animal’s stomach andfrom manure storage), nitrous oxide (fromdenitrification of soil and the crust on manurestorage), and carbon (from crop, animal, andmicrobial respiration as well as fuel combus-tion and land clearing).30

Livestock now account for 50 percent ofthe emissions from agriculture and land usechange. Remarkably, annual emissions fromlivestock total some 7.1 billion tons (includ-ing 2.5 billion tons from clearing land for theanimals), accounting for about 14.5 per-

that the trees will thrive and grow longenough and large enough to actually store asignificant amount of carbon.26

Tree crop alternatives for food, feed, andfuel. In a prescient book in 1929, JosephRussell Smith observed the ecological vul-nerabilities of annual crops and called for “APermanent Agriculture.” This work high-lighted the diversity of tree crops in theUnited States that could substitute for annualcrops in producing starch, protein, edibleand industrial oils, animal feed, and othergoods as well as edible fruits and nuts—ifonly concerted efforts were made to developgenetic selection, management, and process-ing technologies. Worldwide, hundreds ofindigenous species of perennial trees, shrubs,and palms are already producing useful prod-ucts for regional markets but have never beensubject to systematic efforts of tree domesti-cation and improvement or to market devel-opment. Since one third of the world’s annualcereal production is used to feed livestock,finding perennial substitutes for livestock feedis especially promising.27

Exciting initiatives are under way withdozens of perennial species, mainly tappingintra-species diversity to identify higher-yielding, higher-quality products and devel-oping rapid propagation and processingmethods to use in value-added products.For example, more than 30 species of trees,shrubs, and liane in West Africa have beenidentified as promising for domesticationand commercial development. Commercial-scale initiatives are under way to improveproductivity of the Allanblackia and muiri(Prunus africanus) trees, which can be incor-porated into multistrata agroforestry sys-tems to “mimic” the natural rainforesthabitat. Growing trees at high densities isnot, however, recommended in dry areasnot naturally forested, as this may causewater shortages, as has happened with euca-

cent of emissions from human activities.Indeed, a cow/calf pair on a beef farm areresponsible for more GHG emissions in ayear than someone driving 8,000 miles in amid-size car.31

Serious action on climate will almost cer-tainly have to involve reducing consumptionof meat and dairy by today’s major consumersand slowing the growth of demand in devel-oping countries. No such shift seems likely,however, without putting a price on the costof emissions. Meanwhile, some solutions areat hand to reduce emissions of greenhousegases by existing herds.

Intensive rotational grazing. Innova-tive grazing systems offer alternatives toboth extensive grazing systems and con-fined feedlots and dairies, greatly reducingnet GHG emissions while increasing pro-ductivity. Conventional thinking says thatthe current number of livestock far exceedsthe carrying capacity of a typical grazingsystem. But in many circumstances, thisreflects poor grazing management practicesrather than numbers.

Research shows that grasslands can sus-tainably support larger livestock herdsthrough intensive management of herd rota-tions to allow proper regeneration of plantsafter grazing. By letting the plants recover, thesoil organic matter and carbon are protectedfrom erosion, while livestock productivity ismaintained or increased. For example, a4,800-hectare U.S. ranch using intensiverotational grazing tripled the perennial speciesin the rangelands while almost tripling beefproduction from 66 kilograms to 171 kilo-grams per hectare. Various types of rotationalgrazing are being successfully practiced inthe United States, Australia, New Zealand,parts of Europe, and southern and easternAfrica. Large areas of degraded rangelandand pastures around the world could bebrought under rotational grazing to enable

sustainable livestock production.32

Rotational grazing also offers a viablealternative to confined animal operations.A major study by the U.S. Department ofAgriculture compared four temperate dairyproduction systems: full-year confinementdairy, confinement with supplemental graz-ing, outdoor all-year and all-perennial grass-land dairy, and an outdoor cow-calfoperation on perennial grassland. The over-all carbon footprint was much higher forconfined dairy than for grazing systems,mainly because carbon sequestration in thelatter is much higher even though carbonemissions are also higher. The researchersconcluded that some of the best ways toimprove the GHG footprint of intensivedairy and meat operations are to improvecarbon storage in grass systems, use higher-quality forage, eliminate manure storage,cover manure storage, increase meat or milkproduction per animal, and use well-man-aged rotational grazing.33

Feed supplements to reduce methane emis-sions. Methane produced in the rumen (thefirst stomach of cattle, sheep, and goats andother species that chew the cud) account forabout 1.8 billion tons of CO2-equivalentemissions. Nutrient supplements and innov-ative feed mixes have been developed that canreduce methane production by 20 percent,though these are not yet commercially viablefor most farmers. Some feed additives canmake diets easier for animals to digest andreduce methane emissions. These requirefairly sophisticated management, so they aremainly useful in larger-scale livestock opera-tions (which are, in any case, the main sourcesof methane emissions).34

Advanced techniques being developed formethane reduction also include removingspecific microbial organisms from the ani-mal’s rumen or adding other bacteria thatactually reduce gas production there. Research







is also under way to develop vaccines againstthe organisms in the stomach that producemethane.35

Biogas digesters for energy. Manure is amajor source of methane, responsible forsome 400 million tons of CO2-equivalent.And poor manure management is a leadingsource of water pollution. But it is also anopportunity for an alternative fuel thatreduces a farm’s reliance on fossil fuels. Byusing appropriate technologies like an anaer-obic biogas digester, farmers can profit fromtheir farm waste while helping the climate.A biogas digester is basically a tempera-ture-controlled air-tight vessel. Manure (orfood waste) is fed into this vessel, wheremicrobial action breaks it down intomethane or biogas and a low-odor, nutrient-rich sludge. The biogas can be burned forheat or electricity, while the sludge can beused as fertilizer.36

Some communities in developing coun-tries are already using manure to producecooking fuel. By installing anaerobicdigesters, a large pile of manure can be usedto produce biogas as well as fertilizer forfarms. Even collecting the methane andburning it to convert it to carbon dioxide willbe an improvement, as methane has 25 timesthe global warming potential of carbon diox-ide, molecule for molecule, over a 100-yearperiod. And the heat this generates can beused to produce electricity. By thinking cre-atively, previously undervalued and danger-ous wastes can be converted into newsources of energy, cost savings, and evenincome. Biogas digesters involve an initialcash investment that often needs to beadvanced for low-income producers, butlifetime benefits far outweigh costs. Thistechnology could be extended to millions offarmers with benefits for the climate as wellas for human well-being through expandedaccess to energy.37

Biogas can even contribute to commercialenergy. In 2005, for instance, the Penn Eng-land dairy farm in Pennsylvania invested$141,370 in a digester to process manure and$135,000 in a combined heat and powerunit, with a total project cost of $1.14 mil-lion to process the manure from 800 cows.Now the farm makes a profit by using thebiogas to generate 120 kilowatt-hours ofelectricity to sell back to the local utility, at3.9¢ per kilowatt-hour. The system also pro-duces sufficient heat to power the digesteritself, make hot water, and heat the barns andfarm buildings.38

Protecting Existing CarbonStores in Natural Forests

and Grasslands

The world’s 4 billion hectares of forests and5 billion hectares of natural grasslands are amassive reservoir of carbon—both in vegeta-tion and root systems. As forests and grass-lands continue to grow, they remove carbonfrom the atmosphere and contribute to cli-mate change mitigation. Intact natural forestsin Southeast Australia hold 640 tons of car-bon per hectare, compared with 217 tonson average for temperate forests. Thus avoid-ing emissions by protecting existing terrestrialcarbon in forests and grasslands is an essen-tial element of climate action.39

Reduce deforestation and land clearing.Massive deforestation and land clearing arereleasing stored carbon back into the atmos-phere. Between 2000 and 2005, the worldlost forest area at a rate of 7.3 millionhectares per year. For every hectare of for-est cleared, between 217 and 640 tons ofcarbon are added to the atmosphere,depending upon the type of vegetation.Deforestation and land clearing have manydifferent causes—from large-scale, organized




ments agreed to a two-year negotiationprocess that would lead to adoption of amechanism for Reducing Emissions fromDeforestation and Degradation (REDD) after2012. Implementation of any eventual REDDmechanism will pose major methodological,institutional, and governance challenges, butnumerous initiatives are already under way tobegin addressing these.41

A second incentive for conservation isproduct certification, whereby agriculturaland forest products are labeled as havingbeen produced without clearing natural habi-tats or in mosaic landscapes that conserve aminimum area of natural patches. For exam-ple, the Biodiversity and Agricultural Com-modities Program of the InternationalFinance Corporation seeks to increase theproduction of sustainably produced and ver-ified commodities (palm oil, soy, sugarcane,and cocoa), working closely with commod-ity roundtables and their members, regula-tory institutions, and policymakers. Whilethe priority focus is on conservation of bio-diversity, this initiative will have significant cli-mate impacts as well, due to its focus onprotecting existing carbon vegetative sinksfrom conversion, developing standards forsustainable biofuels, and establishing certifi-cation systems.42

A third approach is to secure local tenurerights for communal forests and grasslandsso that local people have an incentive to man-age these resources sustainably and can pro-tect them from outside threats like illegalcommercial logging or land grabs for agri-culture. A study in 2006 of 49 community for-est management cases worldwide found thatall the initiatives that included tenure security(admittedly a small number) were successfulbut that only 38 percent of those without itsucceeded. Diverse approaches and legalarrangements are being used to strengthentenure security and local governance capacity.43

clearing for agricultural use and infrastruc-ture to the small-scale movement of mar-ginalized people into forests for lack ofalternative farming or employment oppor-tunities or to the clearing of trees for com-mercial sale of timber, pulp, or woodfuel. Inmany cases the key drivers are outside theproductive land use sectors—the result ofpublic policies in other sectors, such as con-struction of roads and other infrastructure,human settlements, or border control.40

Unlike many of the other climate-miti-gating land use actions described in this chap-ter, protecting large areas of standing naturalvegetation typically provides fewer short-term financial or livelihood benefits forlandowners and managers, and it may indeedreduce their incomes or livelihood security.The solution sometimes lies in regulation,where there is strong enforcement capacity,as with Australia’s laws restricting the clear-ance of natural vegetation. But in many areasthe challenge is to develop incentives for con-servation for the key stakeholders.

Several approaches are being used. One isto raise the economic value of standing forestsor grasslands by improving markets for sus-tainably harvested, high-value products fromthose areas or by paying land managersdirectly for their conservation value. Currentinternational negotiations are exploring thepossibility of compensating developing coun-tries for leaving their forests intact or improv-ing forest management. During theConference of the Parties to the climate con-vention in Bali in December 2007, govern-

Current international negotiationsare exploring the possibility ofcompensating developing countriesfor leaving their forests intact orimproving forest management.




greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, due tosome early effects of climate change, impor-tant habitats for wildlife are shifting out ofprotected areas. Plants are growing in higheraltitudes as they seek cooler temperatures,while birds have started altering their breed-ing times. Larger and geographically well dis-tributed areas thus need to be put undersome form of protection.

This need not always be through publicprotected areas. At least 370 million hectaresof forest and forest-agriculture landscapesoutside official protected areas are alreadyunder local conservation management, whilehalf of the world’s 102,000 protected areasare in ancestral lands of indigenous and othercommunities that do not want to see themdeveloped. Conservation agencies and com-munities are finding diverse incentives forprotecting these areas, from the sustainableharvesting of foods, medicines, and raw mate-rials to the protection of locally importantecosystem services and religious and culturalvalues as well as opportunities for naturetourism income. Supporting these efforts todevelop and sustain protected area networks,including public, community, and privateconservation areas, can be a highly effectiveway to reduce and store greenhouse gases.46

RestoringVegetationin Degraded Areas

Extensive areas of the world have beendenuded of vegetation from large-scale landclearing for annual crops or grazing and fromoveruse and poor management in communityand public lands with weak governance. Thisis a tragic loss, from multiple perspectives.People living in these areas have lost a poten-tially valuable asset for the production of ani-mal fodder, fuel, medicines, and raw materials.Gathering such materials is an especiallyimportant source of income and subsistence

Reduce uncontrolled forest and grasslandburning. Biomass burning is a significantsource of carbon emissions, especially in devel-oping countries. Controlled biomass burningin the agricultural sector, on a limited scale,can have positive functions as a means ofclearing and rotating individual plots for cropproduction; in some ecosystems, it is a healthymeans of weed control and soil fertilityimprovement. In a number of natural ecosys-tems, such as savanna and scrub forests, wildfires can help maintain biotic functions, as inAustralia. In many tropical forest ecosystems,however, fires are mostly set by humans andenvironmentally harmful—killing wildlife,reducing habitat, and setting the stage formore fires by reducing moisture content andincreasing combustible materials. Even wherethey can be beneficial from an agricultural per-spective, fires can inadvertently spread to nat-ural ecosystems, opening them up for furtheragricultural colonization.44

Systems are already being put in place totrack fires in “real time” so that governmentsand third-party monitors can identify thepeople responsible. In the case of large-scaleranchers and commodity producers, betterregulatory enforcement is needed, along withalternatives to fire for management purposes.For small-scale, community producers, themost successful approaches have been to linkfire control with investments in sustainableintensification of production, in order todevelop incentives within the community toprotect investments from fire damage. These“social controls” have been effectively used togenerate local rules and norms around the useof fire, as in Honduras and The Gambia.45

Manage conservation areas as carbonsinks. Protected conservation areas provide awide range of benefits, including climate reg-ulation. Just letting these areas stand notonly helps the biodiversity within, it alsostores the carbon, avoiding major releases in

for low-income rural people. For example,researchers found in Zimbabwe that 24 per-cent of the average total income of poorfarmers came from gathering woodland prod-ucts. At the same time, the loss of vegetationseriously threatens ecosystem services, par-ticularly watershed functions and wildlifehabitat.47

Efforts to restore degraded areas can thusbe “win-win-win” investments. Althoughthere may be fewer tons of CO2 sequesteredper hectare from restoration activities, millionsof hectares can be restored with low oppor-tunity costs and strong local incentives for par-ticipation and maintenance.

Revegetate degraded watersheds andrangelands. Hydrologists have learned that“green water”—the water stored in vegetationand filtrating into soils—is as important as“blue water” in streams and lakes. When rainfalls on bare soils, most is lost as runoff. Inmany of the world’s major watersheds, mostof the land is in productive use. Poor vege-tative cover limits the capacity to retain rain-fall in the system or to filter water flowing intostreams and lakes and therefore acceleratingsoil loss. From a climate perspective, landsstripped of vegetation have lost the potentialto store carbon. Landscapes that retain year-round vegetative cover in strategically selectedareas and natural habitat cover in criticalriparian areas can maintain most, if not all, ofvarious watershed functions, even if much ofthe watershed is under productive uses.48

With rapid growth in demand for waterand with water scarcity looming in manycountries (in part due to climate change),watershed revegetation is now getting seriouspolicy attention. Both India and China havelarge national programs targeting millions ofhectares of forests and grasslands for reveg-etating, and they see these as investments toreduce rural poverty and protect critical water-sheds. In most cases, very low-cost methods

are used for revegetation, mainly temporaryprotection to enable natural vegetation toreestablish itself without threat of overgraz-ing or fire. For example, in Morocco 34 pas-toral cooperatives with more than 8,000members rehabilitated and manage 450,000hectares of grazing reserves. On highlydegraded soils, some cultivation or reseedingmay be needed. Two keys to success in theseapproaches are to engage local communitiesin planning, developing, and maintainingwatershed areas and to include rehabilitationof areas of high local importance, such asproductive grazing lands, local woodfuelsources, and areas like gullies that can beused for productive cropping.49

In Rajasthan, India, for example, com-munity-led watershed restoration programshave reinstated more than 5,000 traditionaljohads (rainwater storage tanks) in over 1,000villages, increasing water supplies for irriga-tion, wildlife, livestock, and domestic useand recharging groundwater. In Niger, a“regreening” movement, using farmer-man-aged natural regeneration and simple soiland water conservation practices, reverseddesertification, increased tree and shrub cover10- to 20-fold, and reclaimed at least250,000 hectares of degraded land for crops.Over 25 years, at least a quarter of the coun-try’s farmers were involved in restoring about5 million hectares of land, benefiting at least4.5 million people through increased cropproduction, income, and food security.Extending the scale of such efforts couldhave major climate benefits, with huge advan-tages as well for water security, biodiversity,and rural livelihoods.50

Reestablish forest and grassland cover inbiological corridors. Loss and fragmentationof natural habitat are leading threats to bio-diversity worldwide. Conservation biologistshave concluded that in many areas conserva-tion of biodiversity will require the estab-




lishment of “biological corridors” throughproduction landscapes, to connect fragmentsof natural habitat and protected areas and togive species access to adequate territory andsources of food and water. One key strategyis to reestablish forest or natural grasslandcover (depending on the ecosystem) to playthis ecological role. These reforestation effortsalso have major climate benefits.

In Brazil’s highly threatened Atlantic For-est, for example, conservation organizationsworking in the Desengano State Park strucka deal with dairy farmers to provide techni-cal assistance to improve dairy-farm produc-tivity in exchange for the farmers reforestingpart of their land and maintaining it as a con-servation easement. Milk yields tripled andfarmers’ incomes doubled, while a strategicbuffer zone was established for the park.51

In northwestern Ecuador, two thirds ofcoastal rainforests have been lost due to log-ging and agricultural expansion, risking thesurvival of 2,000 plant and 450 bird species.The Chocó-Manabí corridor reforestationproject is attempting to improve wild species’access to refuge habitats by restoring con-nectivity between native forest patchesthrough reforestation efforts. This project isrestoring 265 hectares of degraded pastureswith 15 native trees species and as a resultsequestering 80,000 tons of carbon dioxide.The opportunity for such investments ismobilizing new partnerships between wildlifeconservation organizations, the climate actioncommunity, farmers, and ranchers.52

Market Incentives forClimate-friendly Agriculture

and Land Use

All the strategies described in the precedingsections are already available or are well withintechnological reach at far lower cost than

many climate solutions being discussed (suchas geological storage of carbon). The chal-lenge is shifting policy and investment prior-ities and supporting institutions to createincentives for farmers, pastoralists, forest own-ers, agribusiness, and all other stakeholderswithin the agriculture and forestry supplychains to scale up best practices and con-tinue to innovate new ones. This will requireconcerted action by consumers, farmers’ orga-nizations, the food industry, civil society, andgovernments.

The central players in any response to cli-mate change are the farmers and communi-ties—those who actually manage land—andthe food and fiber industry that shapes theincentives for the choice of crops, qualitystandards, and profitability. Some innova-tors are already showing the way. For exam-ple, the Sustainable Food Lab, a collaborativeof 70 businesses and social organizationsfrom throughout the world, has assembled ateam of member companies, universityresearchers, and technical experts to developand test ways to measure and provide incen-tives for low-carbon agricultural practicesthrough the food supply chain, mainly byincreasing soil organic matter, improvingfertilizer application, and enhancing thecapacity of crops and soil to store carbon.53

A key driver is consumer and buyer aware-ness. Consumers will take the needed stepsonce they realize that their choice of meat anddairy products, and their support for naturalforests and grassland protection, can have asgreat an impact on the climate as how far theydrive their cars. One immediate action is forconsumers, processors, and distributors toadopt greenhouse gas footprint analysis forfood and fiber products, addressing their full“life cycle,” including production, transport,refrigeration, and packaging, to identify strate-gic intervention points.

In 2007, for instance, the Dole Corpora-




tion committed to establishing by 2021 acarbon-neutral product supply chain for itsbananas and pineapples in Costa Rica. Theirfirst step in this process was to purchase for-est carbon offsets from the Costa Rican gov-ernment equal to the emissions of its inlandtransport of these fruits. GHG impact is a keymetric that can be used for evaluating newfood and forest production technologies andfor allocating resources and investments. Pol-icymakers can then include incentives forreducing carbon emissions in cost structuresthroughout the food and land use systems,using various market and policy mechanisms.54

Product markets are also beginning torecognize climate values. The last 20 yearshave seen the rise of a variety of “green”certified products beyond organic, such as“bird-friendly” and “shade-grown,” thathave clear biodiversity benefits. Various cer-tification options already exist for cocoa andcoffee (through the Rainforest Alliance, Star-bucks, and Organic, for example). The For-est Stewardship Council’s certificationprinciples “prohibit conversion of forests orany other natural habitat” and maintain that“plantations must contribute to reduce thepressures on and promote the restorationand conservation of natural forests,” sup-porting the use of forests as carbon sinks.New certification standards are starting upthat explicitly include impacts on climate,which will for the first time send clear signalsto both producers and consumers.55

The rise of carbon emission offset tradingcould potentially provide a major new sourceof funding for the transition to climate-friendly agriculture and land use. (See Box3–2.) A great deal can be done in the shortterm through the voluntary carbon market,but in the long run it will be essential for theinternational framework for action on cli-mate change to fully incorporate agricultureand land use.56

Public Policies toSupport theTransition

Governments can take specific steps imme-diately to support the needed transition byintegrating agriculture, land use, and climateaction programs at national and local land-scape levels. Costa Rica is a leader in theseefforts. The government has committed toachieving “climate neutrality” by 2021, withan ambitious agenda including mitigationthrough land use change. Costa Rica is a par-ticipant in the Coalition for RainforestNations, a group encouraging avoided-defor-estation programs, and has already increasedits forest cover from 21 percent in 1986 to 51percent in 2006. The country is taking advan-tage of markets that make payments forecosystem services and ecotourism to supportthese efforts.57

Currently, governments spend billions ofdollars each year on agricultural subsidy pay-ments to farmers for production and inputs,primarily in the United States ($13 billion in2006, which was 16 percent of the value ofagricultural production) and Europe ($77billion, or 40 percent of agricultural pro-duction value) but also in Japan, India,China, and elsewhere. Most of these pay-ments exacerbate chemical use, the expan-sion of cropland to sensitive areas, andoverexploitation of water and other resourceswhile distorting trade and reinforcing unsus-tainable agricultural practices. Some coun-tries are beginning to redirect subsidypayments to agri-environmental paymentsfor all kinds of ecosystem services, and thesecan explicitly include carbon storage or emis-sions reduction.58

Growth in commercial demand for agri-cultural and forest products from increasedpopulations and incomes in developing coun-tries and demand for biofuels in industrial




nations is stimulating investments by bothprivate and public sectors. In 2003, African

governments committed to increase publicinvestment in agriculture to at least 10 per-




Paying farmers and land managers to reducecarbon emissions or store greenhouse gases isa critical way to both mitigate climate changeand generate ecosystem and livelihood benefits.The carbon market for land use has three maincomponents: carbon emissions offsets for theregulatory market, as established by the KyotoProtocol; offset activities in emerging U.S. regu-latory markets operating outside the KyotoProtocol; and the sale of voluntary carbon off-sets coming from land use, land use change, andforestry, primarily to individual consumers, phil-anthropic buyers, and the private sector.

Developing countries can implementafforestation and reforestation projects thatcount toward emission reduction targets ofindustrial countries through the Clean Develop-ment Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol.Thetreaty authorizes afforestation and reforestationbut excludes agricultural or forest management,avoided deforestation or degradation, and soilcarbon storage. However, each CDM projectmust address thorny issues of nonpermanence ofcarbon uptake by vegetation and soil, risks ofpotential displacement of emissions as deforesta-tion just moves elsewhere, and sustainable devel-opment prospects in the host country that canlimit implementation.

There is more innovation in the voluntarymarket, where buyers value multiple benefits.Thevalue of forestry plus land use projects morethan doubled from $35 million in 2006 to $72million in 2007.Work is proceeding to lend morecredibility, transparency, and uniformity in meth-ods used for creating land-based carbon credits.

There are several ongoing initiatives to pro-mote diverse types of land-use-based payments:• TheWorld Bank’s $91.9-million BioCarbonFund is financing afforestation, reforestation,REDD, agroforestry, and agricultural andecosystem-based projects that not onlypromote biodiversity conservation and povertyalleviation but also sequester carbon.

• The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the

northeastern United States will include affores-tation and methane capture from U.S. farms.

• The trading system in New SouthWales,Aus-tralia—the world’s first—provides for carbonsequestration through forestry, including on-farm forest regeneration.

• The New Zealand government is investingmore than $175 million over five years in a Sus-tainable Land Management and Climate ChangePlan to help the agriculture and forestrysectors adapt to, mitigate, and take advantage ofthe business opportunities of climate change.This scheme will include specific cap-and-tradeallocations to the dairy sector and will incorpo-rate cash grants to encourage new plantings bylandowners, increased research funding,technology transfer, and incentives to use morewood products and bio-energy.

• Rabobank, the world’s largest agriculturalfinancier, will pay farmers $83,000 to reforest,which will be sold as carbon offsets; the bankmay use some of these credits to offset its ownactivities.This is the first transaction of its kindin Brazil’s Xingu province, which has the coun-try’s highest deforestation rates. Soy and cattlefarmers are targeted, and replanting is plannedfor riparian stretches through the region.

• REDD payments for avoided deforestation inMato Grosso state alone in Brazil are estimatedat $388 million annually.

Much larger initiatives are needed now tolink carbon finance with investments to achieverural food security by “re-greening” degradedwatersheds, promoting agroforestry, restoringsoil organic matter, rehabilitating degraded pas-tures, controlling fires, or protecting threatenedforests and natural areas important for local liveli-hoods. If low-income landowners and managersare to benefit from payments for ecosystem ser-vices, they need secure rights, clear indicators ofperformance, and systems for aggregating buyersand sellers to keep transaction costs low.

Source: See endnote 56.

Box 3–2. Paying Farmers for Climate Benefits




Taking Action for Climate-friendly Land Use

Human well-being is wrapped up with howfood is produced. Ingenious systems weredeveloped over the past century to supplyfood, with remarkable reliability, to a goodportion of the world’s 6.7 billion people.But these systems need a fundamental restruc-turing over the next few decades to establishsustainable food systems that both slow andare resilient to climate change. Land-managerand private-sector action will determine theresponse, but public policy and civil societywill play a crucial role in providing the incen-tives and framework for communities andmarkets to respond effectively.61

Food production and other land uses arecurrently among the highest greenhouse gasemitters on the planet—but that can bereversed. Although recent food price riotsmay discourage any actions that could raisecosts, if action is not taken costs will rise any-way as local food systems are disrupted andas higher energy costs ripple through a systemthat has not been prepared with alternatives.

The strategy for reducing greenhouse gasemissions from agriculture and other landuse sectors also must recognize the need formajor increases in food and fiber productionin developing countries to feed adequately the850 million people currently hungry orundernourished, as well as continually grow-ing populations. Investments must be chan-neled so that increased production comesfrom climate-friendly production systemsrather than from systems that clear large areasof natural forest and grasslands, mine organicmatter from the soil, strip vegetative coverfrom riparian areas, or leave soils bare formany months of the year.62

As described in this chapter, many availabletechnologies and management practices could

cent a year, although only Rwanda and Zam-bia have done this so far. The World Bank andthe Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation havecommitted to large increases in funding in thedeveloping world. There is a major windowof opportunity right now to put climatechange adaptation and mitigation at the coreof these strategies.59

This is beginning to happen in small steps.Brazil is crafting a diverse set of investmentprograms to support rural land users whoinvest in land use change for climate changemitigation and adaptation. The U.N. Envi-ronment Programme is initiating dialogues on“greening” the international response to thefood crisis, linking goals of international envi-ronmental conventions with the MillenniumDevelopment Goals.60

But much more comprehensive action isneeded. If not, this otherwise positive trendcould seriously undermine climate actionprograms. A new vision is needed to respondto this food crisis that not only provides ashort-term Band-Aid to refill next year’sgrain bins but also puts the planet on a tra-jectory toward sustainable, climate-friendlyfood systems.

National policy, however, is not enough.It is essential to invest in building capacity atlocal levels to manage ecoagricultural land-scapes—to enable multistakeholder platformsto plan, implement, and track progress inachieving climate-friendly land use systemsthat benefit local people, agricultural pro-duction, and ecosystems.

Many available technologies andmanagement practices couldlighten the climate footprint ofagriculture and other land usesand protect existing carbon sinksin natural vegetation.




With the exception of the recent REDD ini-tiatives to save standing forests through inter-governmental action, which are still in anearly stage, there are no major internationalinitiatives to address the interlinked challengeof climate, agriculture, and land use.

A worldwide, networked movement forclimate-friendly food, forest, and other land-based production is needed. This calls forforging unusual political coalitions that linkconsumers, producers, industry, investors,environmentalists, and communicators. Food,in particular, is something that the publicunderstands. By focusing on food systems, cli-mate action will become more real to people.It is realistic to expect that the prices of foodand other land-based products will rise in awarming world, at least for a time. This mustnot be the result of scarcity caused by climate-induced system collapse but rather becausenew investment has been mobilized to createsustainable food and forest systems that alsocool the planet.

lighten the climate footprint of agricultureand other land uses and protect existing car-bon sinks in natural vegetation and soils.Many more could become operational fairlyquickly with proper policy support or adap-tive research and with a more systematiceffort to analyze the costs and benefits ofdifferent strategies in different land use sys-tems. Other innovative ideas will emerge ifleading scientists and entrepreneurs can beinspired to tackle this challenge. And many ofthe actions most needed in land use systemsto adapt to climate change and mitigate GHGemissions will bring positive benefits for waterquality, air pollution, smoke-related healthrisks, soil health, energy efficiency, and wildlifehabitat. These tangible benefits can generatebroader political support for climate action.

It is heartening that there are already somany initiatives to address climate change inthe food and land use sectors, and theseefforts have established a rich foundation ofpractical, implementable models. But thescale of action so far is dishearteningly small.

2 0 0 9

STATE OF THE WORLDInto a Warming World

To purchase the complete State of the World 2009 reportwith endnotes and resources, please visitwww.worldwatch.org/stateoftheworld.

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state of the world 2009 - carbon negative · 2009-02-23 · reducing soil erosion, improving soil...

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