Copyright © 2009 IAASTD, Washington, DC

Edited by Beverly D. McIntyre, Hans R. Herren, Judi Wakhungu and Robert T. Watson

www.agassessment.org/reports/IAASTD/EN/Agriculture%20at%20a%20Crossroads_Global%20Report%20(English).pdf

Almost a quarter of a billion people live in or near tropical forests, and their well-being depends on them. Two billion people, a third of the world’s population, use fuelwood and charcoal, most of which is harvested in the forest; and two billion people rely on traditional medicines, much of which depends on forest products. The rapid development of agriculture has proceeded through conversion of natural forests, mainly due to rapid population growth, and the higher food production and cash income that can be obtained from farming rather than from forestry. Deforestation, mainly due to conversion of forests to agricultural land, continues at the rate of 13 million ha per year. The net global change in forest area in 2000-2005 is estimated at -7.3 million ha per year.

Broader adoption of conservation agriculture practices would result in numerous environmental benefits such as decreased soil erosion and water loss due to runoff, decreased carbon dioxide emissions and higher carbon sequestration, reduced fuel consumption, increased water productivity, less flooding, and recharging of underground aquifers.

Nearly 49% of grasslands are lightly to moderately degraded and at least 5% are considered strongly to extremely degraded… biomass burning, especially on tropical savannas, contributes over 40% of gross global carbon dioxide emissions.

In crop cultivation, the resilience of arable soils is an issue of great concern. There are two dimensions to the degradation of soils: first their sensitivity to factors causing degradation, and second their resilience to degradation.

..the multifunctional character of ecosystems has to be considered as a crucial aspect important to societies and the global community… For example, large-scale irrigation since the 1960s has had devastating impacts on water resources and soil productivity in Central Asia. The water level of the Aral Sea has dropped by 17 m, resulting in a 50% reduction in its surface area and a 75% reduction in its volume. The resulting economic and health impacts to the Aral Sea coastal communities have been serious. Aquifer depletion and groundwater pollution (also) threaten the livelihoods of millions of small-scale farmers in South Asia …already more than a billion people live in river basins characterized by physical water scarcity. In these areas water availability is a major constraint to agriculture. With increased demand for water, existing scarcity will deepen while more areas will face seasonal or permanent shortages.

…Biomass resources are one of the world’s largest sources of potentially sustainable energy, comprising about 220 billion dry tonnes of annual primary production. World biomass resources correspond to approximately 4,500 EJ (Exajoules) per year of which, however, only a small part is exploited commercially. In total, bioenergy provides about 44 EJ (11%) of the world’s primary energy consumption. …modern bioenergy, such as the efficient use of solid, liquid or gaseous biomass for the production of heat, electricity or transport fuels, which is characterized by high versatility, efficiency and relatively low levels of pollution, accounts for 2.3% of the world’s primary share of energy.

More than 2.5 billion people use biomass such as fuel wood, charcoal, crop waste and animal dung as their main source of energy for cooking. Biomass accounts for 90% of household energy consumption in many developing countries. Smoke produced from the burning of biomass using simple cooking stoves without adequate ventilation, can lead to serious environmental health problems, particularly for women and children. Women and children are most often responsible for fuel collection, an activity with competes significantly with time for other activities, including agriculture (e.g., 37 hours per household per month in one study in rural India). Simple interventions such as improved stoves can reduce biomass consumption by more than 50% and can reduce the effects of indoor smoke.

…There is much evidence that the technological advances of the Green Revolution have sometimes led to environmental degradation and social injustice. This has stimulated interest in new participatory approaches, methods and techniques to meet sustainability criteria.

Options for low fertility lands In tropical areas

Low fertility is often found in deforested areas, where critical topsoil has washed away.

The replacement of traditional slash and burn cultivation by more diversified production systems based on forest products, orchard products, and forages and food products and applying agroecological principles creatively can improve soil fertility**.

(**As well as “Slash and char“, where appropriate.)

Improved management of agriculture and rangelands targeted at soil conservation, agroforestry, conservation tillage (especially no-till), agricultural intensification, and rehabilitation of degraded land can yield C sequestration benefits. Carbon sequestration potential in soils is greatest on degraded soils, especially those with relatively high clay content.

Another promising approach would be to use plant material to produce biochar and store it in soil. Heating plant biomass without oxygen (a process known as low-temperature pyrolysis) converts plant material (trees, grasses or crop residues) into bioenergy, and in the process creates biochar as a coproduct. Biochar is a very stable compound with a high carbon content, surface area, and charge density; it has high stability against decay, and superior nutrient retention capacity relative to other forms of soil organic matter. The potential environmental benefits of pyrolysis combined with biochar application to soil include a net withdrawal of atmospheric CO2, enhancement of soil fertility, and reduced pollution of waterways through retention of fertilizer N and P to biochar surfaces. Future research is needed to more fully understand the effect of pyrolysis conditions, feedstock type, and soil properties on the longevity and nutrient retention capacity of biochar.

Increasing soil organic matter through carbon sequestering practices contributes directly to the long-term productivity of soil, water, and food resources. …it would seem unlikely that farmers would suddenly abandon systems of production that bring so many economic and environmental benefits.

Current trends indicate that a large-scale expansion of production of 1st generation biofuels for transport will create huge demands on agricultural land and water. Efforts are currently focused on increasing biofuel yields per hectare while reducing agricultural input requirements… There is a great variety of crops in developing countries that are believed to hold large yield potential but more research is needed to develop this potential…

…various studies predict that water will be a considerable limiting factor for which feedstock production and other land uses (e.g., food production, ecosystems) would increasingly compete.

…special care must be taken to avoid displacement and marginalization of poor people who often have weakly enforceable or informal property and land-use rights and are thus particularly vulnerable.

Market mechanisms to optimize environmental externalities

… Many critical ecosystem services are undervalued or unvalued; there are no market signals that would spur technological development of alternative supplies. Charges to internalize cost of transportation energy expenditure in globalized agriculture, such as “food mile” taxes are one policy approach. Food mile taxes could help internalize the social and environmental externalities of transport, including the climate impacts, pollution, and the cross-border movement of pests and livestock pathogens, among others.

Policy approaches to assist small-scale producers to articulate their carbon rating will be key, especially as an oversimplified response may be to simply ban long haul agricultural goods, and provide greater support to local food systems and season procurement policies that could end year round supply of off-season goods.

Bioelectricity and bioheat

There is considerable potential for bioelectricity and bioheat to contribute to economic and social development and a number of clear policy options to promote a better exploitation of this potential.

Promotion of R&D, development of technical standards as well as better access to information and finance are needed to better exploit the potential of bioelectricity and bioheat…

Promoting research and development to improve the operational stability and reducing capital costs promises to improve the attractiveness of bioenergy, especially of small and medium-scale biogas digesters and thermo-chemical gasifiers, is important for the developing South. The development of product standards and dissemination of knowledge is also key. A long history of policy failures and a wide variety of locally produced generators with large differences in performance have led to considerable skepticism about bioenergy in many countries. The development of product standards as well as better knowledge dissemination can contribute to increase market transparency and improve consumer confidence.

Experience of various bioenergy promotion programs has shown that proper operation and maintenance are key to success and sustainability of low-cost and small-scale applications.

Therefore, building local capacity, ensuring that local consumers are closely engaged in the development as well as the monitoring and maintenance of facilities, and increased access to finance for bioenergy are necessary. Compared to other off-grid energy solutions, bioenergy often exhibits higher initial capital costs but lower long-term feedstock costs. This cost structure often forces poor households and communities to forego investments in modern bioenergy, even when payback periods are very short. Improved access to finance can help to reduce these problems.

Determinants of public research

In the absence of public intervention, private firms will under-invest in research when the output of that research has the characteristics of a public good—that is, the outputs of research are often non-rival and non-excludable. Because of the public goods nature of research, the social benefits are much higher than the private benefits, and hence the justification for public intervention. While many public investments have high social benefits, public investment will only be justified if the return is higher than other forms of public investment. A review of the RORs (Rate of returns) to research shows that public investments do have high payoffs, often 40 to 50% or more. Considering that private companies and governments usually can obtain credit at interest rates below 10% and the public RORs on other types of government investments are considerably lower than 40%, these returns are very high***.

*** For example, The Americas (Canada and the U.S.) experience 10% of the global disease burden, have 37% of the world’s health workers, and spend more than 50% of the world’s financial health resources.

By comparison, Africa suffers more than 24% of the global disease burden but has access to only 3% of health workers and less than 1% of the world’s TOTAL financial resources, even when loans and grants are included.

(In other words, Regions with the lowest relative need have the highest numbers of health workers, while those with the greatest health burden have a much smaller health workforce.)

Whereas studies that show high social RORs to research investments may convince economists that agricultural research is a good investment, most policy makers actually do not appear to have been sufficiently convinced that these high social RORs warrant large investments. Rather, public investments in agricultural research respond to many of the same forces that influence the amount and direction of private research.

The size and power of different interest groups can also have a major impact on the size and direction of agricultural

R&D. …farmers can push their governments for large investments in research that is likely to concentrate on reducing costs…

NOTE: All countries present at the final intergovernmental plenary session held in Johannesburg, South Africa in April 2008 welcomed the work of the IAASTD and the uniqueness of this independent multistakeholder and multidisciplinary process, and the scale of the challenge of covering a broad range of complex issues.

Financial support was provided to the IAASTD by the cosponsoring agencies, the governments of Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, US and UK, and the European Commission.
Australia, Canada, and the United States of America did not fully approve of this Global Report.