A top official with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says climate-smart practices, particularly to curb greenhouse gas emissions, must be adopted by the agriculture industry, or millions of people will be at risk of hunger.
“There is no doubt climate change affects food security,” said Jose Graziano da Silva, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, in his State of Food and Agriculture 2016 report from Rome, delivered on Oct. 17.
“What climate change does is to bring back uncertainties from the time we were all hunter gatherers,” he said. “We cannot assure any more that we will have the harvest we have planted.”
Such uncertainty also translates into volatile food prices.
“Everybody is paying for that, not only those suffering from droughts,” said Graziano da Silva. “The benefits of adaptation outweigh the costs of inaction by very wide margins.”
Graziano da Silva’s report said that agriculture, including forestry, fisheries and livestock production, are contributing to a warmer world by generating around a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, agriculture must both contribute more to combating climate change while bracing to overcome its impacts, his report said.
Adopting climate-smart practices and increasing the capacity of soils and forests to sequester carbon can reduce emissions while stepping up food production, the report said.
Graziano da Silver said that agriculture will be high on the agenda at the 22nd Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which begins on Nov. 7 in Morocco.
