Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the European Union (EU) on Monday announced that they are pumping in €5.3 million into a project aimed at helping Malawi, Vietnam and Zambia adopt a "climate-smart" approach to agriculture.
The climate-smart approach sees agriculture as vulnerable to climate change at the same time it [Agriculture] is the cause of climate change since it is a significant producer of greenhouse gases and hence the ‘climate-smart’ approach seeks to ‘position the agricultural sector as a solution to these major challenges.’
FAO Assistant Director-General for the Economic and Social Development Department, Hafez Ghanem is quoted by www.fao.org saying: "We need to start putting climate-smart agriculture into practice, working closely with farmers and their communities."
"But there are no one-size-fits-all solutions…this project will look closely at three countries and identify challenges and opportunities for climate-smart agriculture and produce strategic plans tailored to each country's own reality," Ghanem said.
The project will run for three years will be implemented via the ministries of agriculture of the target countries, it will be led by FAO. FAO says it will involve many stakeholders including organisations like Global Crop Diversity Trust.
FAO says the project will study existing approaches, measure the hindrances to implementation, Promote integration of national climate change and agricultural strategies and Identify innovative mechanisms for linking climate finance with climate-smart agriculture investments.
“[The project will] build capacity for planning and implementing climate-smart projects capable of attracting international investments,” says FAO.
The EU has contributed €3.3 million to the project while FAO is providing €2 million.
"The problems of climate change are increasingly being felt on the ground, and thus early actions to address the problem are needed, even as international negotiations continue in the search for a global climate agreement," Ghanem said.
