An international climate change treaty that offers to compensate
farmers for adopting environmental practices and for their role as
managers of carbon-storing lands could be an important boost for
peasant farmers in developing countries, says the United Nations Food
and Agriculture Organization.
But in its annual The State of Food and Agriculture report published
last week, the FAO called for a simple and efficient system for paying
farmers, measuring their contribution to the fight against greenhouse
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gas emissions, and teaching them how to take advantage of the
opportunity.
“Even where such measures are being taken, payments for
carbon-sequestering land-use changes do not represent a panacea for
either the reduction of rural poverty or the mitigation of climate
change,” the report said. “Nonetheless, carbon sequestration payments
can play an important role in promoting sustainable development among
the poor … and may represent an important new means of finance for
such efforts.”
The potential for farmers to make money from a system of carbon-storing
credits will also be part of the debate in Canada over whether the
government should ratify the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change.
Kyoto ratification would require Canada to cut greenhouse gas
emissions, principally carbon dioxide, to levels six percent below 1990
levels – a real cut estimated at as much as 15 percent by 2012.
Industries that are mainly responsible for carbon dioxide emissions
have warned that tens of thousands of jobs would be lost and Canada
would suffer a competitive disadvantage because the United States is
refusing to sign.
But in agriculture, opinion is more divided. Kyoto offers the spectre
of higher energy costs, but also a new income source for farmers who
use environmental practices or who sell grain or straw to ethanol
companies.
FAO analysts said the same debate is raging over potential costs and
benefits to developing world farmers.
Adopting such carbon-storing practices as zero or minimum till can
increase soil productivity and farmer income, the report said.
But poor farmers often do not have the money to make initial
investments required to change farming practices.
“Payments for carbon sequestration services offer an interesting way of
reducing the cost of capital to low income land users.”
In the broader debate about whether human activities and the pollution
they create really are contributing to global warming, the FAO comes
down squarely on the side of those who insist there is a problem.
And it says agriculture is responsible for more than 12 percent of
emissions, while suffering the consequences of erratic weather,
droughts, floods and declining water resources.
“The agriculture sector is of key importance in the issue of climate
change, both as one of the sources of the problem and as a recipient of
its impacts,” the report said.
It also cautions that storing carbon in land and forests is not a
long-term solution. After 20 years or so, land becomes saturated and
stored carbon starts making its way back into the air.
