UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Danish Agriculture Ministry to Call for Action on Food Security at COP15
Farming practices that capture carbon and store it in agricultural soils offer some of the most promising options for early and cost-effective action on climate change – measures that could also address the threat of rising food shortages, poverty, and civil unrest in some developing regions.
Yet according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), agriculture has been largely excluded from the main climate financing mechanisms under discussion in Denmark for COP15.
The Danish Minister of Agriculture, the Director-General of FAO, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will host a panel on December 10 in Copenhagen to highlight the role of agriculture and forestry, not only as victims of climate change but as part of its solution.
The remedy is adoption of practices that both help agriculture to adapt to a changing climate, thereby bolstering hunger and poverty reduc-tion, and reduce emissions in order to avert catastro-phic climate change.
According to figures from the Organi-zation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), covering the years 1990-2002, Denmark is one of the few OECD member states that has combined growth in agricultural production with reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
In Denmark, agriculture contributes 15 per cent of the total emissions of greenhouse gases. Emissions of methane and nitrous oxide from Danish agriculture fell by 23 per cent between 1990 and 2007, mainly because of drop in the number of heads of cattle and a considerable increase in agriculture’s carbon efficiency.
Se mere om arrangementet i u-landsnyts kalender under dato 10.12.09
