by For the first time ever, food and agriculture took center stage at the annual United Nations climate conference in 2023.
More than 130 countries a declaration was signed on December 1, pledging to make their food systems – everything from production to consumption – a focal point in national strategies to address climate change.
The declaration is thin on concrete actions to adapt to climate change and reduce emissions, but it draws attention to a critical issue.
The global food supply is facing disruptions from extreme heat and storms. It is also a major contributor to climate change, being responsible for one-third of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. This tension is why agricultural innovation is increasingly being brought up in international climate discussions.
Currently, agriculture provides enough food for the world’s 8 billion people, although many do not have adequate access. But to feed a world population of 10 billion in 2050, cropland would have to expand by 660,000 to 1.2 million square miles (171 million to 301 million hectares) compared to 2010. This would result in more deforestation, which which contributes to climate change. In addition, some practices that have been widely relied upon to produce enough food, such as the use of synthetic fertilizers, contribute to climate change.
Stopping deforestation and these practices without other solutions would reduce the world’s food supply and farmers’ incomes. Fortunately, there are innovations emerging that can help.
In a new report, the Commission on Innovation for Climate Change, Food Security and Agriculture, founded by Nobel Prize-winning economist Michael Kremer, identifies seven priority areas for innovation that can help ensure sufficient food production, greenhouse gas emissions achieve minimization and scaling of heat. hundreds of millions of people.
I am an agricultural economist and executive director for the commission. Three innovations stand out in particular for their ability to scale up quickly and pay off economically.
Accurate, accessible weather forecasts
With extreme weather leaving crops increasingly vulnerable and farmers struggling to adapt, accurate weather forecasting is vital. Farmers need to know what to expect, in the coming days and beyond, to make strategic decisions about planting, watering, fertilizing and harvesting.
But farmers in many low- and middle-income countries rarely have access to accurate, detailed forecasts.
Our assessment shows that investing in technology to collect data and make forecasts widely available – such as radio, text message or WhatsApp – can pay off many times for economies.
For example, accurate state-level forecasts of seasonal monsoon rainfall totals would help Indian farmers optimize sowing and planting times, providing an estimated benefit of US$3 billion over five years – at a cost of about $5 million.
If farmers in Benin received accurate forecasts via text message, we estimate that they could save $110 to $356 per year per farmer, a large amount in that country.
Forecasts could also be improved by sharing more information among neighboring countries, using platforms such as the World Meteorological Organization’s Climate Services Information System.
Microbial fertilizers
Another innovation priority relates to expanding the use of microbial fertilizers.
Nitrogen fertilizer is widely used to increase crop yields, but it is usually made from natural gas and is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. Microbial fertilizers use bacteria to help plants and soil absorb the nutrients they need, reducing the amount of nitrogen fertilizer needed.
Studies have found that microbial fertilizers can increase legume yields by 10% to 30% in healthy soil and generate billions of dollars in benefits. Other microbial fertilizers work with corn, and scientists are working on more advances.
Soybean farmers in Brazil have been using rhizobia-based microbial fertilizers for many years to improve their yields and cut synthetic fertilizer costs. But this technique is not so widespread in other places. Scaling it up will require funding to expand the test to more countries, but it could have huge benefits for farmers, soil health and the climate.
Methane reduction from livestock
A third innovation priority is livestock, the source of around two-thirds of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions. With demand for beef projected to increase by 80% by 2050 as low- and middle-income countries become richer, reducing these emissions is critical.
Some innovative methods to reduce livestock methane emissions focus on enteric fermentation, which produces methane belts.
Adding algae, seaweed, lipids, tannins or certain synthetic compounds to cattle feed can alter the chemical reactions that generate methane during digestion. Studies have shown that some techniques have the potential to reduce methane emissions by a quarter to almost 100 percent. When cattle produce less methane, they also use less energy, which can go into growth and milk production, giving farmers a boost.
The method is still expensive, but further development and private investment could help scale it up and lower the cost.
Gene editing, whether on livestock or on microorganisms in their stomachs, may one day also have potential.
Download the agricultural innovation
The Innovation Commission also identified four other priorities for innovation:
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Help farmers and communities implement better rainwater harvesting.
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Lowering the cost of digital agriculture that will help farmers use irrigation, fertilizers and pesticides in the most efficient way.
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Encouraging the production of alternative proteins to reduce demand for livestock.
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Provide insurance and other social protections to help farmers recover from extreme weather events.
Although there are promising agricultural innovations, commercial incentives to develop and scale them up have declined, resulting in underinvestment, especially in low- and middle-income countries.
However, funding innovation has a track record of generating very high social rates of return. This creates an opportunity for public and philanthropic investment to develop and deploy innovations on a scale that will reach hundreds of millions of people. Of course, to be effective, any potential innovation must be consistent with – and driven by – national strategies and planned in collaboration with government, the private sector and civil society.
Two decades ago, world leaders were frustrated that life-saving vaccines were not reaching the hundreds of millions of people who needed them, which created Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance. They invested billions of dollars to scale up these innovations, helped immunize more than 1 billion children and halved child mortality in 78 low-income countries.
This year, officials at COP28 are focusing on a similar global response to climate change, food security and agriculture.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a non-profit, independent news organization that brings you facts and analysis to help you make sense of our complex world.
It was written by: Paul Winters, University of Notre Dame.
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Paul Winters receives funding from Bill and the Melinda Gates Foundation for work on the Climate Change, Food Security and Agriculture Innovation Commission. He is the Executive Director of the Innovation Commission for Climate Change, Food Security and Agriculture based at the Development Innovation Lab at the University of Chicago. He is also providing unpaid technical support to the COP28 Presidential Food Systems Initiative on the Innovation Pillar.
