Climate Smart Agriculture

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● Climate Change Solution Beneath Our Feet

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Cover Crops: A Farming Revolution with Deep Roots in the Past / NYT - Feb 2016

The practice of seeding fields between harvests not only keeps topsoil in place, it also adds carbon to the soil and helps the beneficial microbes, fungus, bacteria and worms in it thrive...

Cover cropping is used only by a small minority of farmers. When the U.S. Agriculture Department asked for the first time about cover cropping for its 2012 Census of Agriculture report, just 10.3 million acres — out of about 390 million total acres of farmland sown in crops — on 133,124 farms were planted with cover crops. The next census won’t be done until 2017, but experts say that the practice has spread...

“We’ve never seen anything taken up as rapidly as using cover crops,” said Barry Fisher, a soil health specialist at the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service, an agency within the Agriculture Department.

Modern farming practices like applying fertilizer and herbicides and not tilling their fields, or “no till,” have helped farmers increase yields and reduced labor, but they have also unintentionally interfered with root systems, increased erosion and disrupted underground microbial activity and insect life that are vital to plant and soil health.

Alternative 'Climate-Smart' methods of farming...

1. Climate Smart Agriculture - Food and Agriculture...

http://www.fao.org/climate-smart-agriculture The website of the climate-smart agriculture approach is an entry point for essential information...

2. Climate Smart Agriculture - Food and Agriculture

http://www.fao.org/climate-smart-agriculture/72611/en Climate-smart agriculture, forestry and fisheries (CSA), as defined and presented by FAO at the Hague Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change...

3. Climate Smart Agriculture: the basics | CCAFS: CGIAR

http://www.ccafs.cgiar.org/climate-smart-agriculture Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) addresses the interlinked challenges of food security and climate change. Major initiatives to advance CSA include the Global Alliance...

4. Climate Smart Agriculture: Global Science

http://climatesmart.ucdavis.edu/index.html Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA): A Scientific Publication from the Davis Conference (click for PDF) Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA): A Primer...

5. Climate Smart Agriculture - World Bank Group

http://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/document/CSA_Brochure_web_WB.pdf A Call to Action. How Climate-Smart Agriculture Can Help in countries where the economy is heavily based on agriculture and development of the agricultural sector...

6. The Other CSA: What Is Climate-Smart Agriculture?

http://www.modernfarmer.com/2014/09/csa-climate-smart-agriculture Climate-smart agriculture could be the only way to feed our planet as climate change makes it impossible for us to farm the way we do now. But what is it?

7. How Climate Smart Agriculture Is Improving Lives

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-campbell-phd/how-climate-smart-agriculture-is-improving_b_4255424.html Nov 11, 2013 • After four years of fruitless discussions on agriculture, we need global policies that recognize the critical role of agriculture for climate change...

8. Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture

http://www.un.org/climatechange/summit/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/05/AGRICULTURE-PR.pdf

Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture... 23 September 2014

Climate Summit Launches Efforts Toward Food Security for 9 Billion People by 2050 / Smart Agriculture Builds Resilience for Farmers and Reduces Emissions...

9. Climate Smart Conference 2015

http://csa2015.cirad.fr/

Climate-smart agriculture is a way to achieve short-and-long-term agricultural development priorities in the face of climate change...

33 keynote speakers from 19 countries... http://csa2015.cirad.fr/keynote_speakers

10. Climate Smart Agriculture - Center for Sustainable Development

http://www.csd-i.org/ol-333-climate-smart-agricult/

Addressing depleted soils, unreliable access to water, outmoded agricultural practices and a lack of coping strategies for adapting to a changing climate are leading to reduced agricultural productivity, income generation, and food security for smallholder farmers worldwide

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Additional Resources

Examples of climate-smart systems by showcasing some FAO success stories in various countries. The cases have been selected from the FAO Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) Sourcebook (PDF)

http://www.fao.org/climatechange/climatesmart/en/

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http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n12/full/nclimate2437.html

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http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/UN_Framework_Convention_on_Climate_Change-2015

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Alternative 'Climate-Friendly Gardening' methods...

Climate Smart Gardens

Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases from gardens and encourage the absorption of carbon dioxide by soils and plants

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https://www.pinterest.com/ClimateNexus/climate-smart-agriculture/