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Soil carbon is the major active pool of terrestrial carbon, and as such, soil organic carbon (SOC) targets, policies and measures will be pivotal to achieving global climate targets. SOC sequestrat...

There is growing international interest in better managing soils to increase soil organic carbon (SOC) content to contribute to climate change mitigation, to enhance resilience to climate change and to underpin food security, through initiatives such as international ‘4p1000’ initiative and the FAO's Global assessment of SOC sequestration potential (GSOCseq) programme. Since SOC content of soils cannot be easily measured, a key barrier to implementing programmes to increase SOC at large scale, is the need for credible and reliable measurement/monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) platforms, both for national reporting and for emissions trading. Without such platforms, investments could be considered risky. In this paper, we review methods and challenges of measuring SOC change directly in soils, before examining some recent novel developments that show promise for quantifying SOC. We describe how repeat soil surveys are used to estimate changes in SOC over time, and how long‐term experiments and space‐for‐time substitution sites can serve as sources of knowledge and can be used to test models, and as potential benchmark sites in global frameworks to estimate SOC change. We briefly consider models that can be used to simulate and project change in SOC and examine the MRV platforms for SOC change already in use in various countries/regions. In the final section, we bring together the various components described in this review, to describe a new vision for a global framework for MRV of SOC change, to support national and international initiatives seeking to effect change in the way we manage our soils., Since soil organic carbon (SOC) changes are difficult to measure, a key barrier to implementing programmes to increase SOC is the need for credible and reliable measurement/monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) platforms. We review methods for measuring SOC change directly in soils, examine novel developments for quantifying SOC change and describe how surveys, long‐term experiments and chronosequences can be used for testing models and as benchmark sites in global frameworks to estimate SOC change. We review MRV platforms for soil organic carbon change already in use and describe a new vision for a global framework for MRV of SOC change.

International audience; Climate change adaptation, mitigation and food security may be addressed at the same time by enhancing soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration through environmentally sound land management practices. This is promoted by the “4 per 1000” Initiative, a multi-stakeholder platform aiming at increasing SOC storage through sustainable practices. The scientific and technical committee of the Initiative is working to identify indicators, research priorities and region-specific practices needed for their implementation. The Initiative received its name due to the global importance of soils for climate change, which can be illustrated by a thought experiment showing that an annual growth rate of only 0.4% of the standing global SOC stocks would have the potential to counterbalance the current increase in atmospheric CO2. However, there are numerous barriers to the rise in SOC stocks and while SOC sequestration can contribute to partly offsetting greenhouse gas emissions, its main benefits are related to increased soil quality and climate change adaptation. The Initiative provides a collaborative platform for policy makers, practitioners, scientists and stakeholders to engage in finding solutions. Criticism of the Initiative has been related to the poor definition of its numerical target, which was not understood as an aspirational goal. The objective of this paper is to present the aims of the initiative, to discuss critical issues and to present challenges for its implementation. We identify barriers, risks and trade-offs and advocate for collaboration between multiple parties in order to stimulate innovation and to initiate the transition of agricultural systems toward sustainability.

Response to “The “4p1000” initiative: A new name should be adopted” by Baveye and White (2019)

Actions on climate change (SDG 13), including in the food system, are crucial. SDG 13 needs to align with the Paris Agreement, given that UNFCCC negotiations set the framework for climate change actions. Food system actions can have synergies and trade-offs, as illustrated by the case for nitrogen fertiliser. SDG 13 actions that reduce emissions can have positive impacts on other SDGs (e.g. 3, 6, 12, 14, 15); but such actions should not undermine the adaptation goals of SDG 13 and SDGs 1, 2, 5 and 10. Balancing trade-offs is thus crucial, with SDG 12 central: responsible consumption and production. Transformative actions in food systems are needed to achieve SDG 13 (and other SDGs), involving technical, policy, capacity enhancement and finance elements. But transformative actions come with risks, for farmers, investors, development agencies and politicians. Likely short and long term impacts need to be understood.

Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture is needed to meet global climate policy targets. A number of low-emission development (LED) options exist in agriculture, which globally emi...

Take these eight steps to make soils more resilient to drought, produce more food and store emissions, urge Cornelia Rumpel and colleagues. Take these eight steps to make soils more resilient to drought, produce more food and store emissions, urge Cornelia Rumpel and colleagues.

Food loss and waste (FLW) reduce food available for consumption and increase the environmental burden of production. Reducing FLW increases agricultural and value-chain productivity and may reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with feeding the global population. Although studies of interventions that reduce FLW exist, almost no research systematically investigates FLW interventions across multiple value chains or countries, most likely due to challenges in collecting and synthesizing data and estimates, let alone estimating greenhouse gas emissions. Our research team investigated changes in FLW in projects supported by the United States Agency for International Development 's (USAID) global hunger and food security initiative, Feed the Future. This was a unique opportunity to conduct ex-ante estimates of the impacts of FLW interventions across 20 value chains in 12 countries, based on project documents and interviews with USAID and project staff. This paper describes specific interventions in each value chain and country context, providing insight to interventions that decrease FLW at multiple points along food value chains, from upstream producer-dominated stages to downstream consumer-dominated stages. Amongst the sub-sectors studied, FLW interventions directed at extensive dairy systems could decrease FLW by 4–10%, providing meaningful greenhouse gas mitigation, since these systems are both emission-intensive and experience high FLW. More modest emissions reductions were found for other key agricultural products, including maize, rice, vegetables, fruits and market goods.

International audience; At the 21st session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, COP21), a voluntary action plan, the '4 per 1000 Initiative: Soils for Food Security and Climate' was proposed under the Agenda for Action. The Initiative underlines the role of soil organic matter (SOM) in addressing the three-fold challenge of food and nutritional security, adaptation to climate change and mitigation of human-induced greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions. It sets an ambitious aspirational target of a 4 per 1000 (i.e. 0.4%) rate of annual increase in global soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks, with a focus on agricultural lands where farmers would ensure the carbon stewardship of soils, like they manage day-to-day multipurpose production systems in a changing environment. In this paper, the opportunities and challenges for the 4 per 1000 initiative are discussed. We show that the 4 per 1000 target, calculated relative to global top soil SOC stocks, is consistent with literature estimates of the technical potential for SOC sequestration, though the achievable potential is likely to be substantially lower given socio-economic constraints. We calculate that land-based negative emissions from additional SOC sequestration could significantly contribute to reducing the anthropogenic CO2 equivalent emission gap identified from Nationally Determined Contributions pledged by countries to stabilize global warming levels below 2 degrees C or even 1.5 degrees C under the Paris agreement on climate. The 4 per 1000 target could be implemented by taking into account differentiated SOC stock baselines, reversing the current trend of huge soil CO2 losses, e.g. from agriculture encroaching peatland soils. We further discuss the potential benefits of SOC stewardship for both degraded and healthy soils along contrasting spatial scales (field, farm, landscape and country) and temporal (year to century) horizons. Last, we present some of the implications relative to non-CO2 GHGs emissions, water and nutrients use as well as co-benefits for crop yields and climate change adaptation. We underline the considerable challenges associated with the non-permanence of SOC stocks and show how the rates of adoption and the duration of improved soil management practices could alter the global impacts of practices under the 4 per 1000 initiative. We conclude that the 4 per 1000 initiative has potential to support multiple sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda. It can be regarded as no-regret since increasing SOC in agricultural soils will contribute to food security benefits that will enhance resilience to climate change. However, social, economic and environmental safeguards will be needed to ensure an equitable and sustainable implementation of the 4 per 1000 target.

International agricultural carbon market projects face significant challenges in delivering greenhouse gas mitigation objectives whilst also seeking to provide additional benefits for poverty alleviation. The carbon credit producer (the smallholder farmer) and carbon credit buyer in the carbon market transaction typically operate at different spatial and temporal scales. Buyers operate at a global scale, responding to opportunities for financial speculation and both private and public climate action plans. Farmers operate within households, farms, and immediate agricultural landscapes, pursuing livelihood and food security needs. These different scales often result in mismatches of timing, payment, and knowledge in market transactions and can be partially rectified by project developers who serve to broker the relationship between the farmers and the buyers. We examined eight East African agricultural carbon market projects to determine how project developers function as bridging organizations and minimize the mismatches between these actors. Results show that projects better bridged the timing and payment gap between buyers and producers when project developers provided non-monetary benefits or direct monetary assistance to farmers. However, knowledge gaps remained a significant barrier for farmers wishing to participate in the market. We discuss how project developers brokered relationships in ways that reflected their interests and highlight the limitations, trade-offs, and challenges that must be overcome if win-win outcomes of poverty alleviation and climate change mitigation are to be realized.

There is broad agreement that current food systems are not on a sustainable trajectory that will enable us to reach the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, particularly in the face of anthropogenic climate change. Guided by a consideration of some food system reconfigurations in the past, we outline an agenda of work around four action areas: rerouting old systems into new trajectories; reducing risks; minimising the environmental footprint of food systems; and realigning the enablers of change needed to make new food systems function. Here we highlight food systems levers that, along with activities within these four action areas, may shift food systems towards more sustainable, inclusive, healthy and climate-resilient futures. These actions, summarised here, are presented in extended form in a report of an international initiative involving hundreds of stakeholders for reconfiguring food systems., Highlights • Food systems need to shift towards more sustainable, inclusive, healthy and climate-resilient futures. • Food systems reconfiguration needs to happen in the next ten years in order to achieve the Paris agreement and SDG agenda. • Food systems reconfiguration include rerouting trajectories, reducing risks and emissions, realigning enablers of change. • Actions for food systems reconfiguration need to be tailored to the diversity of farmer types.

A number of governance mechanisms address socio-environmental challenges associated with commodity agriculture in tropical forested countries. Governance mechanisms that prove effective in one agricultural sector are often applied to other sectors as well. For example, voluntary certification programs have been adopted by producers of commodities as diverse as beef, coffee, palm oil, and soy. However, there are substantial differences in the extent to which governance mechanisms scale up and achieve impact in different sectors. This paper analyzes how the potential for scaling up a particular governance mechanism is influenced by environmental, market, and social geographies that differ between sectors. Through stakeholder interviews, farm-level surveys, and a literature review, we examine two types of voluntary governance mechanisms (third-party certification, and sustainable intensification programs) in the coffee and cattle sectors in Brazil, to understand why the two governance mechanisms have scaled differently between these two sectors. We find that third-party certification programs have scaled up relatively well in Brazil's coffee sector, more so than its cattle sector, in part owing to differences in sustainability priorities, market orientations, supply chain traceability, and social networks between the two sectors. We also find that pilot sustainable intensification programs in the cattle sector have had more success than certification in engaging farmers, in part because they involve less investment from participating farmers. We conclude that the distribution and quality of environmental resources, markets, knowledge, actors, and networks can play an important role in the ability of a governance mechanism to effectively take root.

Increasing weather risks threaten agricultural production systems and food security across the world. Maintaining agricultural growth while minimizing climate shocks is crucial to building a resilient food production system and meeting developmental goals in vulnerable countries. Experts have proposed several technological, institutional, and policy interventions to help farmers adapt to current and future weather variability and to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This paper presents the climate-smart village (CSV) approach as a means of performing agricultural research for development that robustly tests technological and institutional options for dealing with climatic variability and climate change in agriculture using participatory methods. It aims to scale up and scale out the appropriate options and draw out lessons for policy makers from local to global levels. The approach incorporates evaluation of climate-smart technologies, practices, services, and processes relevant to local climatic risk management and identifies opportunities for maximizing adaptation gains from synergies across different interventions and recognizing potential maladaptation and trade-offs. It ensures that these are aligned with local knowledge and link into development plans. This paper describes early results in Asia, Africa, and Latin America to illustrate different examples of the CSV approach in diverse agroecological settings. Results from initial studies indicate that the CSV approach has a high potential for scaling out promising climate-smart agricultural technologies, practices, and services. Climate analog studies indicate that the lessons learned at the CSV sites would be relevant to adaptation planning in a large part of global agricultural land even under scenarios of climate change. Key barriers and opportunities for further work are also discussed.

Successfully meeting the mitigation and adaptation targets of the Paris Climate Agreement (PA) will depend on strengthening the ties between forests and agriculture. Climate-smart land use can be achieved by integrating climate-smart agriculture (CSA) and REDD+. The focus on agriculture for food security within a changing climate, and on forests for climate change mitigation and adaptation, can be achieved simultaneously with a transformational change in the land-use sector. Striving for both independently will lead to competition for land, inefficiencies in monitoring and conflicting agendas. Practical solutions exist for specific contexts that can lead to increased agricultural output and forest protection. Landscape-level emissions accounting can be used to identify these practices. Transdisciplinary research agendas can identify and prioritize solutions and targets for integrated mitigation and adaptation interventions. Policy coherence must be achieved at a number of levels, from international to local, to avoid conflicting incentives. Transparency must lastly be integrated, through collaborative design of projects, and open data and methods. Climate-smart land use requires all these elements, and will increase the likelihood of successful REDD+ and CSA interventions. This will support the PA as well as other initiatives as part of the Sustainable Development Goals.

As scientists working at the International Rice Research Institute and other institutions that have investigated greenhouse gas emissions from rice fields, we read the recent article in PNAS by Kritee et al. (1) with great interest. The observed N2O emissions from rice fields in South India including previously unknown high rates definitely constitute an important finding that warrants being reported. We also agree that recommendations on farming practices should give close attention to timing and rates of N fertilizer application in relation to water management. Other generalizations in this study, however, are largely unfounded and speculative. We raise several critical issues that are further substantiated by information … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: r.wassmann{at}irri.org. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Carbon market projects have focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, often at the expense of achieving sustainable development goals. A central pillar in sustainable development is equity, yet most projects pay little attention to equity implications for underrepresented farmers, especially women. Agricultural carbon market projects that explicitly seek to promote sustainable agricultural land management practices are quickly gaining attention worldwide for their promise to deliver the ‘triple-win’: adaptation, food security, and mitigation. Previous experience with other payment for ecosystem services projects indicate that women often are marginalized and their needs ignored. To address this gap, this case study examined the Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project with a focus on gender equity in access, decision making, and outcomes. Results show that women had less access to joining the project than men, because they did not have the same level of influence in decision making at a household level. At the project level, both men and women had little influence in establishing project requirements and potential benefits, as these were decided upon prior to farmer recruitment. Regarding outcomes, women tended to participate in more project activities, and would in return reap more nonmonetary benefits than men. However, the costs involved in achieving these benefits was nontrivial: women's farm labor time increased significantly due to the substantial time and effort required to implement sustainable agricultural land management practices. If agricultural soil carbon market projects are to achieve better outcomes by addressing equity issues, they need to pay special attention to gender and the differing needs of farmers—male, female, young, old, poor, and less poor—by involving them at the project design stage. Our findings show the importance of additional project benefits unrelated to carbon income for addressing the requirements of equity perceived by both the implementing agency and women themselves.

Better stewardship of land is needed to achieve the Paris Climate Agreement goal of holding warming to below 2 °C; however, confusion persists about the specific set of land stewardship options available and their mitigation potential. To address this, we identify and quantify "natural climate solutions" (NCS): 20 conservation, restoration, and improved land management actions that increase carbon storage and/or avoid greenhouse gas emissions across global forests, wetlands, grasslands, and agricultural lands. We find that the maximum potential of NCS-when constrained by food security, fiber security, and biodiversity conservation-is 23.8 petagrams of CO2 equivalent (PgCO2e) y-1 (95% CI 20.3-37.4). This is ≥30% higher than prior estimates, which did not include the full range of options and safeguards considered here. About half of this maximum (11.3 PgCO2e y-1) represents cost-effective climate mitigation, assuming the social cost of CO2 pollution is ≥100 USD MgCO2e-1 by 2030. Natural climate solutions can provide 37% of cost-effective CO2 mitigation needed through 2030 for a >66% chance of holding warming to below 2 °C. One-third of this cost-effective NCS mitigation can be delivered at or below 10 USD MgCO2-1 Most NCS actions-if effectively implemented-also offer water filtration, flood buffering, soil health, biodiversity habitat, and enhanced climate resilience. Work remains to better constrain uncertainty of NCS mitigation estimates. Nevertheless, existing knowledge reported here provides a robust basis for immediate global action to improve ecosystem stewardship as a major solution to climate change.

This introduction to the special section on “Governing Agriculture-Forest Landscapes to Achieve Climate Change Mitigation” reviews external interventions to improve forest conditions and reduce deforestation, and by extension, influence carbon storage in agriculture-forest landscapes. The review is based on a careful survey of 123 cases of project-based and policy interventions to influence land use and forest cover outcomes. We propose that outcomes of interventions can be explained in terms of rights, incentives, and technologies related to land use and apply this framework to examine 12 types of interventions in agriculture-forest landscapes. The analysis of the identified 123 cases raises concerns about consistency of data and comparability of cases. Our preliminary evidence suggests limited association between the stated objective of an intervention and its success. This evidence also suggests that smaller scale and effective enforcement may be positively associated with improved forest outcomes. But the effectiveness of interventions across different agriculture-forest landscapes varies and available evidence does not permit easy generalizations. The variable effects of interventions across different agriculture-forest landscapes point to the need to better understand the forms and functions of interventions and to problems associated with assessing their relative efficacy.

Demand for tools to rapidly assess greenhouse gas impacts from policy and technological change in the agricultural sector has catalyzed the development of ‘GHG calculators’— simple accounting approaches that use a mix of emission factors and empirical models to calculate GHG emissions with minimal input data. GHG calculators, however, rely on models calibrated from measurements conducted overwhelmingly under temperate, developed country conditions. Here we show that GHG calculators may poorly estimate emissions in tropical developing countries by comparing calculator predictions against measurements from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Estimates based on GHG calculators were greater than measurements in 70% of the cases, exceeding twice the measured flux nearly half the time. For 41% of the comparisons, calculators incorrectly predicted whether emissions would increase or decrease with a change in management. These results raise concerns about applying GHG calculators to tropical farming systems and emphasize the need to broaden the scope of the underlying data.

Dickman et al . (2015; Front Ecol Environ 13[6] : 325–31) suggested that “moral relativism” and “misguided respect” for cultural practices impede biological conservation. They favor a world in which conservation scientists armed with universal norms will more readily implement their solutions without the consent of local stakeholders. While we acknowledge their concerns, their vision, however tentative, appears misguided. Here we highlight some objections.

More than 100 countries pledged to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the 2015 Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Yet technical information about how much mitigation is needed in the sector vs. how much is feasible remains poor. We identify a preliminary global target for reducing emissions from agriculture of ~1 GtCO2e yr−1 by 2030 to limit warming in 2100 to 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. Yet plausible agricultural development pathways with mitigation cobenefits deliver only 21–40% of needed mitigation. The target indicates that more transformative technical and policy options will be needed, such as methane inhibitors and finance for new practices. A more comprehensive target for the 2 °C limit should be developed to include soil carbon and agriculture-related mitigation options. Excluding agricultural emissions from mitigation targets and plans will increase the cost of mitigation in other sectors or reduce the feasibility of meeting the 2 °C limit.

This chapter explains the rationale for greenhouse gas emission estimation in tropical developing countries and why guidelines for smallholder farming systems are needed. It briefly highlights the innovations of the SAMPLES approach and explains how these advances fill a critical gap in the available quantification guidelines. The chapter concludes by describing how to use the guidelines.

Climate change will have far-reaching impacts on crop, livestock and fisheries production, and will change the prevalence of crop pests. Many of these impacts are already measurable. Climate impact studies are dominated by those on crop yields despite the limitations of climate-crop modelling, with very little attention paid to more systems components of cropping, let alone other dimensions of food security. Given the serious threats to food security, attention should shift to an action-oriented research agenda, where we see four key challenges: (a) changing the culture of research; (b) deriving stakeholder-driven portfolios of options for farmers, communities and countries; (c) ensuring that adaptation actions are relevant to those most vulnerable to climate change; (d) combining adaptation and mitigation.

To achieve food security for many in low-income and middle-income countries for whom this is already a challenge, especially with the additional complications of climate change, will require early investment to support smallholder farming systems and the associated food systems that supply poor consumers. We need both local and global policy-linked research to accelerate sharing of lessons on institutions, practices and technologies for adaptation and mitigation. This strategy paper briefly outlines how the Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) of the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centres (CGIAR) is working across research disciplines, organisational mandates, and spatial and temporal levels to assist immediate and longer-term policy actions.

Agriculture and food security are key sectors for intervention under climate change. Agricultural production is highly vulnerable even to 2C (low-end) predictions for global mean temperatures in 2100, with major implications for rural poverty and for both rural and urban food security. Agriculture also presents untapped opportunities for mitigation, given the large land area under crops and rangeland, and the additional mitigation potential of aquaculture. This paper presents a summary of current knowledge on options to support farmers, particularly smallholder farmers, in achieving food security through agriculture under climate change. Actions towards adaptation fall into two broad overlapping areas: (1) accelerated adaptation to progressive climate change over decadal time scales, for example integrated packages of technology, agronomy and policy options for farmers and food systems, and (2) better management of agricultural risks associated with increasing climate variability and extreme events, for example improved climate information services and safety nets. Maximization of agriculture's mitigation potential will require investments in technological innovation and agricultural intensification linked to increased efficiency of inputs, and creation of incentives and monitoring systems that are inclusive of smallholder farmers. Food systems faced with climate change need urgent, broad-based action in spite of uncertainties.

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) has gained significant policy momentum as an international mechanism for global climate change mitigation. The mobilization of funding, technical activity and institutional engagement for REDD has been relatively quick and widespread. The policy and technical lessons learned over the evolution of REDD are not yet widely understood, nor have they been widely integrated into efforts aimed at enabling and incentivizing agricultural mitigation. Within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, there are opportunities to include agricultural mitigation through the ad hoc working groups and technical work programs. To create the policy space and operational feasibility necessary for an international mechanism for agricultural mitigation, parallel advancement is needed on developing a shared vision, tackling high-priority analysis, coordinating efforts among stakeholders and getting money to flow from donor governments, foundations and industry.

SUMMARYGlobal food security is under threat by climate change, and the impacts fall disproportionately on resource-poor small producers. With the goal of making agricultural and food systems more climate-resilient, this paper presents an adaptation and mitigation framework. A road map for further agricultural research is proposed, based on the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security. We propose a holistic, integrated approach that takes into account trade-offs and feedbacks between interventions. We divide the agenda into four research areas, three tackling risk management, accelerated adaptation and emissions mitigation, and the fourth facilitating adoption of research outputs. After reviewing specific technical, agronomic and policy options for reducing climate change vulnerability, we acknowledge that science and good-faith recommendations do not necessarily translate into effective and timely actions. We therefore outline impediments to behavioural change and propose that future research overcomes these obstacles by linking the right institutions, instruments and scientific outputs. Food security research must go beyond its focus on production to also examine food access and utilization issues. Finally, we conclude that urgent action is needed despite the uncertainties, trade-offs and challenges.

This article analyses the greenhouse gas (GHG) impact potential of improved management practices and technologies for smallholder agriculture promoted under a global food security development program. Under 'business-as-usual' development, global studies on the future of agriculture to 2050 project considerable increases in total food production and cultivated area. Conventional cropland intensification and conversion of natural vegetation typically result in increased GHG emissions and loss of carbon stocks. There is a strong need to understand the potential greenhouse gas impacts of agricultural development programs intended to achieve large-scale change, and to identify pathways of smallholder agricultural development that can achieve food security and agricultural production growth without drastic increases in GHG emissions.In an analysis of 134 crop and livestock production systems in 15 countries with reported impacts on 4.8 million ha, improved management practices and technologies by smallholder farmers significantly reduce GHG emission intensity of agricultural production, increase yields and reduce post-harvest losses, while either decreasing or only moderately increasing net GHG emissions per area. Investments in both production and post-harvest stages meaningfully reduced GHG emission intensity, contributing to low emission development. We present average impacts on net GHG emissions per hectare and GHG emission intensity, while not providing detailed statistics of GHG impacts at scale that are associated to additional uncertainties. While reported improvements in smallholder systems effectively reduce future GHG emissions compared to business-as-usual development, these contributions are insufficient to significantly reduce net GHG emission in agriculture beyond current levels, particularly if future agricultural production grows at projected rates.

Building trust through collaboration, institutional development, and social learning enhances efforts to foster ecosystem management and resolve multi-scale society–environment dilemmas. One emerging approach aimed at addressing these dilemmas is adaptive co-management. This method draws explicit attention to the learning (experiential and experimental) and collaboration (vertical and horizontal) functions necessary to improve our understanding of, and ability to respond to, complex social–ecological systems. Here, we identify and outline the core features of adaptive co-management, which include innovative institutional arrangements and incentives across spatiotemporal scales and levels, learning through complexity and change, monitoring and assessment of interventions, the role of power, and opportunities to link science with policy.

Although community managed forests constitute a significant proportion of the worlds’ forests, there is little information about their condition or how they are managed. The International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) network is a research programme established in 1992 to collect interdisciplinary information about forest sustainability and governance. IFRI is unique in terms of the large number of small-scale sites monitored (more than 350 communities and 9000 forest plots) for more than a decade, under the guidance of strong central leadership, a well defined research framework, relative autonomy of network members, and a strong inward focus. These features have enabled IFRI to have particular impacts on new knowledge, policy and local communities, and capacity building. Lessons about how to further strengthen, extend and sustain these impacts include developing more robust agreement about measures of forest sustainability, building network members’ capacities to conduct comparative analysis, ensuring the database meets the needs of multiple users and expanding the membership and outreach of the network.

This paper presents a set of principles and operational guidelines for research and development (RD (b) systems approaches, and (c) organisational models. Eleven operational guidelines for implementing the approach are suggested, arranged in three clusters: (a) working together; (b) establishing the institutional and organisational framework; and (c) improving the approaches to suit the task. The elements and strategies for two of these cornerstones (collaborative partnerships and scaling-up and scaling-out) are illustrated to indicate the quality needed to achieve appropriate implementation of the R&D approach.

Decentralization in post-Soeharto Indonesia has not only changed state and society relations at the local level, but brought increased control over forests at the district level. Local social forces gained more influence because of their close relations with local government and acted to limit the local government. In this article we use the case of Malinau, East Kalimantan Indonesia to show how the new local autonomy over forests played a role in the rise of new local political orders.

As most nontimber forest products (NTFPs) are of low cash value, their potential for generating significant income appears limited. Low value products can, however, result in significant incomes when people specialize in them. We examine specialization and the conditions under which it occurred for resin production from agroforests in Pesisir Sumatra using data from 223 households. Households with agroforests enjoyed incomes 26% higher than average. Comparison of two villages suggests specialization was associated with access to markets, less suitable land for wet rice cultivation and reliance on damar income for purchasing food staples. In contrast to findings elsewhere, Krui farmers specialized using low value products and minimum inputs. The cultivation of damar in low maintenance agroforests yielded attractive returns. We conclude that low value NTFPs should not be overlooked, as specialization and low input production systems such as agroforests can help to generate significant income from t...

As people living near forests in many parts of the world receive recognition of resource-management rights, questions arise about where forest boundaries should be set and who should legitimately receive these rights. Drawing on research conducted among forest-dwelling Kenyah communities in Kalimantan, Indonesia, during 1995 to 1998, I show that the realization of resource rights must be understood in the social context of how boundaries are interpreted and negotiated. Access to and control over forest resources is as much a matter of boundary keeping as of boundary setting. The analysis shows that boundary keepers assessed whether someone should be given access based on the potential user's entitlement, identity, and the potential for exchange. Understanding the ‘fuzziness’ of how seemingly clear boundary rules are applied should provide a more realistic picture of how groups gain and control access to resources in practice.

© 2014 Steenwerth et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. Background: Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) addresses the challenge of meeting the growing demand for food, fibre and fuel, despite the changing climate and fewer opportunities for agricultural expansion on additional lands. CSA focuses on contributing to economic development, poverty reduction and food security; maintaining and enhancing the productivity and resilience of natural and agricultural ecosystem functions, thus building natural capital; and reducing trade-offs involved in meeting these goals. Current gaps in knowledge, work within CSA, and agendas for interdisciplinary research and science-based actions identified at the 2013 Global Science Conference on Climate-Smart Agriculture (Davis, CA, USA) are described here within three themes: (1) farm and food systems, (2) landscape and regional issues and (3) institutional and policy aspects. The first two themes comprise crop physiology and genetics, mitigation and adaptation for livestock and agriculture, barriers to adoption of CSA practices, climate risk management and energy and biofuels (theme 1); and modelling adaptation and uncertainty, achieving multifunctionality, food and fishery systems, forest biodiversity and ecosystem services, rural migration from climate change and metrics (theme 2). Theme 3 comprises designing research that bridges disciplines, integrating stakeholder input to directly link science, action and governance. Outcomes: In addition to interdisciplinary research among these themes, imperatives include developing (1) models that include adaptation and transformation at either the farm or landscape level; (2) capacity approaches to examine multifunctional solutions for agronomic, ecological and socioeconomic challenges; (3) scenarios that are validated by direct evidence and metrics to support behaviours that foster resilience and natural capital; (4) reductions in the risk that can present formidable barriers for farmers during adoption of new technology and practices; and (5) an understanding of how climate affects the rural labour force, land tenure and cultural integrity, and thus the stability of food production. Effective work in CSA will involve stakeholders, address governance issues, examine uncertainties, incorporate social benefits with technological change, and establish climate finance within a green development framework. Here, the socioecological approach is intended to reduce development controversies associated with CSA and to identify technologies, policies and approaches leading to sustainable food production and consumption patterns in a changing climate.

18 Bioversity International, Regional Office for the Americas, Recta Cali-Palmira km 17, Palmira, Colombia Abstract Addressing the global challenges of climate change, food security, and poverty alleviation requires enhancing the adaptive capacity and mitigation potential of agricultural landscapes across the tropics. However, adaptation and mitiga- tion activities tend to be approached separately due to a variety of technical, political, financial, and socioeconomic constraints. Here, we demonstrate that many tropical agricultural systems can provide both mitigation and adaptation benefits if they are designed and managed appropriately and if the larger land- scape context is considered. Many of the activities needed for adaptation and mitigation in tropical agricultural landscapes are the same needed for sustain- able agriculture more generally, but thinking at the landscape scale opens a new dimension for achieving synergies. Intentional integration of adaptation and mitigation activities in agricultural landscapes offers significant benefits that go beyond the scope of climate change to food security, biodiversity con- servation, and poverty alleviation. However, achieving these objectives will require transformative changes in current policies, institutional arrangements, and funding mechanisms to foster broad-scale adoption of climate-smart ap- proaches in agricultural landscapes.

Reducing emissions of agricultural greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as methane and nitrous oxide, and sequestering carbon in the soil or in living biomass can help reduce the impact of agriculture on climate change while improving productivity and reducing resource use. There is an increasing demand for improved, low cost quantification of GHGs in agriculture, whether for national reporting to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), underpinning and stimulating improved practices, establishing crediting mechanisms, or supporting green products. This ERL focus issue highlights GHG quantification to call attention to our existing knowledge and opportunities for further progress. In this article we synthesize the findings of 21 papers on the current state of global capability for agricultural GHG quantification and visions for its improvement. We conclude that strategic investment in quantification can lead to significant global improvement in agricultural GHG estimation in the near term.

The economic importance of gaharu is assessed in three villages on the Bahau River in north-central Borneo to gain insights about the incentives for harvesting and management of a valuable nontimber forest product. Three indicators of economic value—level and proportion of income, returns to labor, and proportion of gaharu collecting households per village—are used to demonstrate the multiple incentives that NTFP income can generate. The concept of incentive logic is developed as an analytical technique to show how economic values can be linked to incentives for different types of management actions. The article discusses how incentives from gaharu income were most likely linked to the stake local people had in the resource, their preferences about which forest product to harvest, and their willingness to engage in collective action. These incentives contributed to sustainability to the extent they induced actions that reduce threats to the resource. The article suggests that an understanding of the influence of economic incentives on people’s resource management can be improved by recognizing three factors: the multiple incentives created by an income, the logical link of those incentives to a management action, and the influence of other sociocultural and biophysical factors on management.

Forest devolution policies have generated much hope for sustainable development in rural areas of the South. Yet such policies have not always generated economic benefits for the poor, and have seldom transferred substantial decision-making authority to the poorest forest users. We discuss four case studies of the history of devolution policies in Asia that ask why. We draw several conclusions from these cases. Devolution policies will fail to meet the expectations of the poorest forest users unless they address historical ‘holdovers', particularly ideologies and institutions within government that continue to favor centralized control and elite/subordinate relations at the local level. At the same time, policies must include scope for building capacity at the local level to deal with new forests and new institutional and political conditions. The state can play a role in capacity building, but will succeed only by working collaboration with social movements and NGOs that advocate on behalf of forest users, especially the poor among them. Because addressing holdovers and building capacity are difficult tasks, policies should be organized so that they can be reviewed and reformed in a collaborative fashion on a regular basis.

Income measures are increasingly used as an indicator of the well-being of forest villagers, their use of forest products, and even the value of a forest. The methods for estimating income are often underreported, however, and little analysis is available of the methods required to measure income. Ten case studies are examined to demonstrate methods in use for quantifying household income. The cases are used to investigate techniques for overcoming two common methodological obstacles: (1) the cost of collecting data about many, diverse and distant sources of income from the forest, and (2) the difficulty of aggregating the monetary values of products. The strengths and weaknesses of the techniques are discussed to help researchers identify methods appropriate to their needs. The article concludes that (1) costs are most effectively reduced where the number of products studied is limited and methods based on indirect observation are used; (2) aggregating the monetary value of a mix of market and subsistenc...

Although there has been increasing interest in trying to link the livelihoods of people living near natural resources to the conservation of those resources, there has been little attempt to systematically assess or measure this linkage. We develop a conceptual framework for defining the linkage between livelihood activities and conservation. We then develop a scale to assess the strength of linkage across five dimensions: species, habitat, spatial, temporal and conservation association. We test the framework and scale by evaluating 39 project sites in the Biodiversity Conservation Network. Finally, we discuss the relevance of linkage to designing appropriate conservation strategies.

Current trends to improve the adaptiveness of community forest management focus on monitoring past actions and emphasize internal dynamics. We show how scenario methods can be used to (1) enable managers to better understand landscape and larger scale forces for change and to work with stakeholders at these levels and (2) improve adaptiveness not only by responding to changes, but also by anticipating them. We review methods related to scenario analysis and discuss how they can be adapted to community management settings to improve the responsiveness and the collaboration among stakeholders. The review is used to identify the key elements of scenario methods that CIFOR will test among communities in Bulungan Regency, East Kalimantan, Indonesia and two villages in the buffer zone of Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar.

Agriculture is considered to be “climate-smart” when it contributes to increasing food security, adaptation and mitigation in a sustainable way. This new concept now dominates current discussions in agricultural development because of its capacity to unite the agendas of the agriculture, development and climate change communities under one brand. In this opinion piece authored by scientists from a variety of international agricultural and climate research communities, we argue that the concept needs to be evaluated critically because the relationship between the three dimensions is poorly understood, such that practically any improved agricultural practice can be considered climate-smart. This lack of clarity may have contributed to the broad appeal of the concept. From the understanding that we must hold ourselves accountable to demonstrably better meet human needs in the short and long term within foreseeable local and planetary limits, we develop a conceptualization of climate-smart agriculture as agriculture that can be shown to bring us closer to safe operating spaces for agricultural and food systems across spatial and temporal scales. Improvements in the management of agricultural systems that bring us significantly closer to safe operating spaces will require transformations in governance and use of our natural resources, underpinned by enabling political, social and economic conditions beyond incremental changes. Establishing scientifically credible indicators and metrics of long-term safe operating spaces in the context of a changing climate and growing social-ecological challenges is critical to creating the societal demand and political will required to motivate deep transformations. Answering questions on how the needed transformational change can be achieved will require actively setting and testing hypotheses to refine and characterize our concepts of safer spaces for social-ecological systems across scales. This effort will demand prioritizing key areas of innovation, such as (1) improved adaptive management and governance of social-ecological systems; (2) development of meaningful and relevant integrated indicators of social-ecological systems; (3) gathering of quality integrated data, information, knowledge and analytical tools for improved models and scenarios in time frames and at scales relevant for decision-making; and (4) establishment of legitimate and empowered science policy dialogues on local to international scales to facilitate decision making informed by metrics and indicators of safe operating spaces.

Globally, agriculture is directly responsible for 14% of annual greenhouse gas(GHG) emissions and induces an additional 17% through land use change, mostlyin developing countries (Vermeulen et al 2012). Agricultural intensification andexpansion in these regions is expected to catalyze the most significant relativeincreases in agricultural GHG emissions over the next decade (Smith et al 2008,Tilman et al 2011). Farms in the developing countries of sub-Saharan Africa andAsia are predominately managed by smallholders, with 80% of land holdingssmaller than ten hectares (FAO 2012). One can therefore posit that smallholderfarming significantly impacts the GHG balance of these regions today and willcontinue to do so in the near future.However, our understanding of the effect smallholder farming has on theEarth’s climate system is remarkably limited. Data quantifying existing andreduced GHG emissions and removals of smallholder production systems areavailable for only a handful of crops, livestock, and agroecosystems (Herrero et al2008, Verchot et al 2008, Palm et al 2010). For example, fewer than fifteenstudies of nitrous oxide emissions from soils have taken place in sub-SaharanAfrica, leaving the rate of emissions virtually undocumented. Due to a scarcity ofdata on GHG sources and sinks, most developing countries currently quantifyagricultural emissions and reductions using IPCC Tier 1 emissions factors.However, current Tier 1 emissions factors are either calibrated to data primarilyderived from developed countries, where agricultural production conditions aredissimilar to that in which the majority of smallholders operate, or from data thatare sparse or of mixed quality in developing countries (IPCC 2006). For the mostpart, there are insufficient emissions data characterizing smallholder agricultureto evaluate the level of accuracy or inaccuracy of current emissions estimates.Consequentially, there is no reliable information on the agricultural GHG budgetsfor developing economies. This dearth of information constrains the capacity totransition to low-carbon agricultural development, opportunities for smallholdersto capitalize on carbon markets, and the negotiating position of developingcountries in global climate policy discourse.Concerns over the poor state of information, in terms of data availability andrepresentation, have fueled appeals for new approaches to quantifying GHGemissions and removals from smallholder agriculture, for both existing conditionsand mitigation interventions (Berry and Ryan 2013, Olander et al 2013).Considering the dependence of quantification approaches on data and the currentdata deficit for smallholder systems, it is clear that in situ measurements must bea core part of initial and future strategies to improve GHG inventories and

Better information on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and mitigation potential in the agricultural sector is necessary to manage these emissions and identify responses that are consistent with the food security and economic development priorities of countries. Critical activity data (what crops or livestock are managed in what way) are poor or lacking for many agricultural systems, especially in developing countries. In addition, the currently available methods for quantifying emissions and mitigation are often too expensive or complex or not sufficiently user friendly for widespread use.The purpose of this focus issue is to capture the state of the art in quantifying greenhouse gases from agricultural systems, with the goal of better understanding our current capabilities and near-term potential for improvement, with particular attention to quantification issues relevant to smallholders in developing countries. This work is timely in light of international discussions and negotiations around how agriculture should be included in efforts to reduce and adapt to climate change impacts, and considering that significant climate financing to developing countries in post-2012 agreements may be linked to their increased ability to identify and report GHG emissions (Murphy et al 2010, CCAFS 2011, FAO 2011).

Anthropogenic soils of the Amazon Basin (Terra Preta, Terra Mulata) reveal that pre-Colombian peoples made lasting improvements in the agricultural potential of nutrient-poor soils. Some have argued that applying similar techniques could improve agriculture over much of the humid tropics, enhancing local livelihoods and food security, while also sequestering large quantities of carbon to mitigate climate change. Here, we present preliminary evidence for Anthropogenic Dark Earths (ADEs) in tropical Asia. Our surveys in East Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) identified several sites where soils possess an anthropogenic development and context similar in several respects to the Amazon’s ADEs. Similarities include riverside locations, presence of useful fruit trees, spatial extent as well as soil characteristics such as dark color, high carbon content (in some cases), high phosphorus levels, and improved apparent fertility in comparison to neighboring soils. Local people value these soils for cultivation but are unaware of their origins. We discuss these soils in the context of local history and land-use and identify numerous unknowns. Incomplete biomass burning appears key to these modified soils. More study is required to clarify soil transformations in Borneo and to determine under what circumstances such soil improvements might remain ongoing.

Expanding croplands to meet the needs of a growing population, changing diets, and biofuel production comes at the cost of reduced carbon stocks in natural vegetation and soils. Here, we present a spatially explicit global analysis of tradeoffs between carbon stocks and current crop yields. The difference among regions is striking. For example, for each unit of land cleared, the tropics lose nearly two times as much carbon (∼120 tons·ha(-1) vs. ∼63 tons·ha(-1)) and produce less than one-half the annual crop yield compared with temperate regions (1.71 tons·ha(-1)·y(-1) vs. 3.84 tons·ha(-1)·y(-1)). Therefore, newly cleared land in the tropics releases nearly 3 tons of carbon for every 1 ton of annual crop yield compared with a similar area cleared in the temperate zone. By factoring crop yield into the analysis, we specify the tradeoff between carbon stocks and crops for all areas where crops are currently grown and thereby, substantially enhance the spatial resolution relative to previous regional estimates. Particularly in the tropics, emphasis should be placed on increasing yields on existing croplands rather than clearing new lands. Our high-resolution approach can be used to determine the net effect of local land use decisions.

REDD initiatives are more likely to succeed if they build on the interests of forest communities and indigenous people. More attention is needed to the balance of incentives, benefits, rights and political participation across levels of decision making, interest groups and administration. Incentives can include payments or other benefits for good practices, developing alternative livelihoods, formalising land tenure and local resource rights and intensifying productivity on nonforest lands. The pressure to reduce deforestation needs to be spread across many levels to reduce the burden on forest communities.

Indonesia's 1999-2004 decentralization reforms created opportunities for land-use planning that reflected local conditions and local people's needs. We report on seven years of work in the District of Malinau in Indonesian Borneo that attempted to reconnect government land-use plans to local people's values, priorities, and practices. Four principles are proposed to support more interactive planning between government and local land users: Support local groups to make their local knowledge, experience, and aspirations more visible in formal land-use planning and decision making; create channels of communication, feedback, and transparency to support the adaptive capacities and accountability of district leadership and institutions; use system frameworks to understand the drivers of change and resulting scenarios and trade-offs; and link analysis and intervention across multiple levels, from the local land user to the district and national levels. We describe the application of these principles in Malinau and the resulting challenges.