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There is an urgent need for countries to transition their national food and land-use systems toward food and nutritional security, climate stability, and environmental integrity. How can countries satisfy their demands while jointly delivering the required transformative change to achieve global sustainability targets? Here, we present a collaborative approach developed with the FABLE—Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land, and Energy—Consortium to reconcile both global and national elements for developing national food and land-use system pathways. This approach includes three key features: (1) global targets, (2) country-driven multi-objective pathways, and (3) multiple iterations of pathway refinement informed by both national and international impacts. This approach strengthens policy coherence and highlights where greater national and international ambition is needed to achieve global goals (e.g., the SDGs). We discuss how this could be used to support future climate and biodiversity negotiations and what further developments would be needed.

Shifting cultivation will face increasing pressure from erosion‐related land degradation caused by rising cultivation intensities and climate change. However, empirical knowledge about future trends of soil erosion and thus land degradation in shifting cultivation systems is limited. We use the Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) model to first explore the combined effects of climate change and agricultural intensification on soil erosion of uphill shifting cultivation systems, using six surveyed soil profiles. We assess interactions between climate change, the length of the fallow period, and slope inclinations for a near (2021–2050) and far (2071–2100) future period, considering three climate scenarios, five climate models, fallow periods between one and 20 years, and slopes between five and 70% steepness. Our results show a significant nonlinear relationship between global warming and erosion. Until the end of the century, erosion is estimated to increase by a factor of 1.2, 2.2, and 3.1 under the SSP126, SSP370, and SSP585 scenarios, respectively, compared with the historical baseline (1985–2014). Combined effects from climate change, fallow length, and slope inclination indicate that steep slopes require longer fallow periods, with an increase of slope from 5% to 10% multiplying the required fallow length by a mean factor of 2.5, and that fallow periods will need to be extended under higher global warming if erosion rates are to remain at current levels. These findings are novel as they link climate change effects on shifting cultivation systems to different slopes and fallow regimes, making an important contribution to understanding future erosion dynamics of traditional smallholder production systems in mountainous terrain, with relevant implications for policies on agricultural intensification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's monsoon dependent agriculture is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, and inadequate policies contribute to socio-economic difficulties in farming communities. Many current policies and strategies to combat climate change impacts are focused on technical aspects of adaptations whereas little research is done to understand the socio-economic dimensions, particularly the perspectives of farmers. To address this gap, we conducted semi-structured interviews with more than 800 farm-families residing in the Northeastern Region of India (NER), an Eastern Himalayan ecosystem. Results show that most farmers perceive changes in climate and are aware of its agricultural and socio-economic impacts. The majority of farmers from all eight NER states have personally experienced unusual climatic events within the last 10–15 years. About two-thirds believe that climate change is largely man-made and there is an urgent need to take action. Many farmers observed declining water availability and soil fertility across NER. High cost of agricultural inputs and unawareness of effective adaptation technologies are the core barriers for adaptation in NER. To sustain their livelihoods, vulnerable farmers have adopted a few low-cost measures. However, strategic interventions are highly advocated to empower human capital for enhancing socio-ecological resilience. In conclusion, to overcome the barriers of farm adaptations in NER, holistic support programs are needed, which raise awareness for suitable actions, reduce input costs, and facilitate access to financial credits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many inhabitants of the Northeastern region of India (NER) are poor and have to rely on subsistence farming for a livelihood and are therefore vulnerable to negative impacts of climate change. To enhance the resilience of the farmers and the entire agricultural sector of NER, stakeholders need to acquire additional and/or specialized competencies to deal with the negative impacts of climate change. In this study, we systematically identify and prioritize crucial competencies for change agents, farmers and institutions in NER. We used a modified Delphi methodology with several iterations to lead experts towards a consensus about the most pressing competencies for each stakeholder group. The items were prioritized using a composite scoring approach. The findings reveal that for change agents in NER, an open-minded attitude and expertise in linking farmers to markets are highly rated competencies. For the farmers, eco-friendly farming skills and a problem-solving attitude emerged as key competencies. Biodiversity conservation and integrated farming skills are also highly desirable. Concerning the institutions, the Krishi Vigyan Kendras (farm science centers) have to play a priority role in implementing policies promoting sustainable and climate-resilient agriculture, as they are the institutional link to farming communities. The experts are confident that the overall sustainability of the agricultural sector in NER can be considerably enhanced by developing these key competencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazilian sugarcane production is converting from the traditional manual slash-and-burn to mechanized green cane harvest. The resulting sugarcane trash is mostly left on the field and plowed under at the end of a growth cycle, but it could also be recovered and used to increase the energy efficiency of ethanol. In this paper, we explore in a simulation study if straw recovery negatively impacts yields, fertilizer use, nutrient cycling, GHG emissions, and erosion; if there is an optimal recovery rate; and if different recovery rates are advisable for different soil types. We also compare the traditional slash-and-burn management to the green cane management system. Our results show that when performing straw recovery, trade-offs between different factors such as up to 1.3 t/ha lower yields or an up to 30 kg/ha higher demand for fertilizer N under low recovery rates, and higher erosion rates under high recovery rates have to be accepted. Most balanced would be a recovery rate of 40–60%, but the rate should also be adapted to soil type, with less recovery e.g. on soils prone to erosion, and to economic considerations. A comparison between green cane harvest without straw recovery and the traditional slash-and-burn method shows lower erosion rates and higher soil organic carbon contents, but also a higher fertilizer consumption due to nitrogen immobilization on areas under green cane management. Due to these trade-offs, one method cannot be unequivocally commended over the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural planning processes at farm to national level are essential for assessing and reacting to land conditions, opportunities, and threats for coffee production. However, lack or uncertainty of information is common during these processes. Bayesian networks can be used to manage these uncertainties. We, therefore, developed the first Bayesian network model for an Agroecological Land Evaluation for Coffea arabica L. (ALECA). A newly developed set of suitability functions was used to populate the nodes in the network. ALECA was then adjusted and validated to Central America. The results show that even without the use of coffee maps as input, ALECA accurately scores the suitability of actual coffee areas for coffee production as higher than that non-coffee areas, and can accurately predict the known order of quality of coffee reference zones in Central America. The results also show that ALECA can be used as a decision-support tool even under data uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate forecasting has emerged as an adaptation option for agriculture to better cope with climate variability. We use a coupled climate-crop-economy modeling system to analyze the value of climate information (VOI) in Spain for the domestic agricultural sector and for international agricultural markets. Climate variability in Spain is represented by the observed variability over a 30 year history. We assume perfect accuracy of seasonal climate forecasting but distinguish conservative and proactive crop mix adjustments. We also contrast nationally restricted dissemination of Spanish climate forecasts versus global dissemination. Averaged over the simulated climate states, the global benefits of Spanish climate forecasts range between 61 and 189 million US$ per year. Agricultural consumers in Spain gain between 0.8 and 2.9 percent and Spanish farm revenues increase between 1.9 and 7.0 percent. If Spanish farmers consider crop mix choices outside historical bounds (proactive reaction) their revenues are notably higher than otherwise (conservative reaction). The VOI under favorable climate conditions is greater than under adverse climate conditions. When adverse climate conditions are forecast, negative VOI could materialize for the Spanish farmers because of production and welfare transfers from Spain to other countries. Information sharing of Spanish climate predictions with the rest of the world (ROW) increases not only global welfare but also Spanish producers' benefits. Finally, climate forecasting promotes a more efficient use of agricultural resources. The agricultural efficiency increase due to climate forecasts translates into welfare-neutral land savings of 2 percent in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]