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• Investments to enhance agricultural growth can generate GHG mitigation co-benefits. • Evidence of GHG mitigation helps to implement global climate change policy. • Better integration of forestry and agricultural actions can generate large emissions reduction impacts. • Opportunity exists for scaling best practices to generate mitigation co-benefits. Global agricultural development programs aim to support smallholder farmers and farming communities by strengthening sustainable and resilient food production systems – which can also promote climate change mitigation as a co-benefit by reducing the emissions and enhancing removals of greenhouse gases (GHG). This study presents estimated GHG emissions reductions of almost 100 agricultural development projects over 51 low- and middle-income countries supported by the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), USAID-Feed the Future (FTF) Initiative, and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO, previously DfID). Together, these projects promoted a net GHG emissions reduction of 6.5 MtCO 2 e per year. The forest management and promotion of improved agroforestry systems in the project areas contributed the most to the total mitigation co-benefits of the investment portfolios (∼3.9 MtCO 2 e/y). Improved crop management with minimum tillage practices, residue incorporation, water management in paddy rice, and the use of organic fertilizers also made a large contribution to the GHG emissions reduction (∼1.5 MtCO 2 e/y). Grass and pasture land management across the selected projects account for a net emission reduction of 0.2 MtCO 2 e/y. The implementation of improved agricultural practices in combination proves more effective for improving productivity and generating mitigation co-benefits than used in isolation. However, the aggregate impacts of soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration should be interpreted carefully, which quickly can be lost quick. The interventions promoted by the global agricultural development programs have shown immense potential in reducing net GHG emissions or emission intensity in agriculture and allied sectors. For moving forward to achieve the net-zero and 1.5 °C goals including food security, the global agriculture development programs need to prioritize working on agriculture policy development and implementation so that agriculture expansion does not continue to drive land-use change. This needs to move from the traditional agriculture development programs to transformational changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of an agreement during the COP15, the Brazilian government is fostering several activities intended to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. One of them is the adoption of anaerobic digester (AD) for treating animal manure. Due to a lack of information, we developed a case study in order to evaluate the effect of such initiative for beef cattle feedlots. We considered the net GHG emissions (CH 4 and N 2 O) from the manure generated from 140 beef heifers confined for 90 days in the scope “housing to field application” by including field measurements, literature values, and the offset generated by the AD system through the replacement of conventional sources of nitrogen (N) fertilizer and electricity, respectively. Results showed that direct GHG emissions accounted for 0.14 ± 0.06 kg of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO 2 eq) per kg of animal live weight gain (lwg), with ~ 80% originating from field application, suggesting that this emission does not differ from the conventional manure management (without AD) typically done in Brazil (0.19 ± 0.07 kg of CO 2 eq per kg lwg − 1 ). However, 2.4 MWh and 658.0 kg of N-manure were estimated to be generated as a consequence of the AD utilization, potentially offsetting 0.13 ± 0.01 kg of CO 2 eq kg lwg − 1 or 95% (± 45%) of total direct emissions from the manure management. Although, by replacing fossil fuel sources, i.e. diesel oil, this offset could be increased to 169% (± 47%). In summary, the AD has the potential to significantly mitigate GHG emissions from manure management in beef cattle feedlots, but the effect is indirect and highly dependent on the source to be replaced. In spite of the promising results, more and continuous field measurements for decreasing uncertainties and improving assumptions are required. Identifying shortcomings would be useful not only for the effectiveness of the Brazilian government, but also for worldwide plans in mitigating GHG emissions from beef production systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cattle ranching in Brazil is a key driver of deforestation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Brazilian government plans to reduce national GHG emissions by at least 36%, partly by reducing emissions in the livestock sector through strategies such as intensification, pasture improvement, and rotational grazing. In response, sustainability programs promoting these practices have begun operation. Though studies have previously investigated aspects of GHG emissions and sequestration in improved pastures, they have not linked improvements with programmatic interventions. We surveyed 40 cattle ranchers located in the Brazilian Amazon biome to investigate how GHG emissions differed between farms participating in livestock sustainability programs with intensified production and farms not participating in these programs. We found that participating farms produced 8.3 kg of CO 2 e/kg of carcass weight (CW) less than did non-participating farms, which represents 19% fewer emissions. Farms that had participated in a sustainability program for at least two years showed larger differences in emissions: 19.0 kg of CO 2 e/kg CW less for program farms compared with their counterparts, or 35.8% fewer emissions. Key drivers of the total CO 2 e/kg CW in all farms were enteric fermentation and manure management. This paper provides farm-level data supporting intensification as a possible strategy to reduce emissions per kilogram of beef produced, and suggests that future research efforts should focus on long-term impacts of intensification and expand metrics for success beyond GHG calculations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]