Agriculture and climate change: real problems, false solutions - Preliminary version of a new report on agriculture and climate change

Jun 2009

This paper discusses some of the ways in which industrial agriculture is proposed to mitigate and promote adaptation to climate change in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Proposals for mitigation include the agricultural practise of non-tillage (no-till), the exploitation of biomass as bio- or agrofuels and 'biochar' to counter climate change as well as the intensification of the livestock industry; adaptation on the other hand includes the development and cultivation of genetically modified (GM) 'climate ready' crops and the exploitation of so-called marginal land. This report also discusses the likely consequences of including agriculture and soils in carbon trading.
Agriculture is a major contributor to climate change. At the same time, the impacts of climate change on agriculture are already serious. Seasons and weather are becoming increasingly unpredictable and extreme. This can lead to major losses as farmers no longer know what or when to plant. If climate change continues unabated, the increasing extremes could lead to the collapse of whole agricultural regions. Climate change also disrupts and alters pest and disease patterns, posing risks to agriculture everywhere.
It is widely accepted that industrial agriculture has had destructive impacts on climate, ecosystems, soil, water and biodiversity resources, yet agriculture has hitherto been neglected in UNFCCC negotiations and in the government departments addressing climate change. However, in many quarters, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) itself, further intensification of industrial agriculture is now proposed as part of the solution to the problems of climate change to which it has contributed in the first place. Intensive industrial monoculture production, for example, is proposed as a means to produce agrofuels and biochar on a massive scale as well as to develop a bioeconomy, in which fuels and industrial materials are produced from biomass instead of from fossil oil.
As negotiations begin for the new climate treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, proposals are being made to include agriculture as an eligible source for climate change mitigation, especially soil carbon sequestration.

By: Grupo de Reflexion Rural, Biofuelwatch, EcoNexus, NOAH

 
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