Scientific and technical network will work on the adaptation of agriculture to climate change

San Jose, Costa Rica, June 21, 2011 (IICA). An intergovernmental cooperation program devised by IICA is to set up and operate a scientific and technical network, whose main objectives will be to conduct research on climate change and share regional information about the issue with a view to enhancing the institutional capabilities of the agricultural sectors of Mexico, Central America and Colombia for dealing with it.

Adapting agriculture to climate change involves making adjustments designed to minimize the damage caused or tap the opportunities created. For the measures introduced to be successful, they must address agriculture as a whole and not merely target specific crops, and be based on the premise that climate change affects the population of the entire world, not only the inhabitants of a particular territory.

The Office of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) in Mexico, which is coordinating the initiative involving Mexico, the Central American countries and Colombia, believes that such an approach will facilitate the development of adaptation strategies consistent with a regional culture.

During a technical forum held at the Institute’s Headquarters in Costa Rica in June, IICA consultant Cecilia Conde, who is also a professor and researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), presented the objectives of the so-called Intergovernmental Cooperation Program “Climate Change, Opportunities and Challenges for Agriculture” (PRICA).

Greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities such as transportation, industry and stock raising, among others, combine with other phenomena to produce climate change. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this will lead to an increase of 2ºC in the global mean temperature before the year 2100.

IICA Director General Víctor M. Villalobos believes that the PRICA’s target countries need strategic solutions to this problem, since their emissions are linked to their industrial and economic development, and agriculture also has to become more efficient.

“The challenge before us is to increase agricultural productivity in order to meet the needs of a growing population, estimated to reach 9.15 billion by the year 2050. Science and technology have a box of tools for facilitating that adaptation,” Villalobos added.

Preparing for the COP 17

The participants in the technical forum discussed the status of the agreements of the Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (referred to as COP 16 and held in Cancun, Mexico, in 2010) and the implications for agriculture in IICA’s Member States.

The next conference, or COP 17, will be taking place from November 28 to December 9, 2011 in Durban, South Africa.

The IICA Office in Mexico aims to have the scientific and technical network in place two months before that. “If it is up and running, we will be on course for adaptation to climate change. It is the right way to proceed, because there are common questions and common answers,” Conde said.

According to the specialist, there are specific studies on the adaptation of agriculture in Mexico, Central America and Colombia, but a lack of regional research. “We have to discuss where we want the planned adaptations to take us. If the global temperature increases by 2ºC, we are going to be in trouble, we are not prepared for abrupt climate change. We need to propose agro-environmental policies,” the UNAM professor remarked.

The researchers who sign up for the network proposed by the PRICA will contribute information about the impact of climate change on their countries, thus making it possible to construct geo-prospective scenarios, that is, overarching scenarios focusing on more than specific regions or individual countries, in order to have a regional vision when drafting strategic policies for agriculture in Mesoamerica.

“This approach makes it possible to articulate and develop custom-made programs for territories, biological corridors, model forests and watersheds. It places the emphasis on interrelationships,” said Galileo Rivas, Leader of the Food Crop Production Program of the Tropical Agriculture Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE).

Reducing emissions

Gustavo Cárdenas, Manager of IICA’s Cross-cutting Coordination Program on Agriculture, Natural Resource Management and Climate Change, drew attention to the fact that agricultural activities are affected by variations in climate such as droughts, floods and mean temperature increases but also contribute to climate instability, especially through the use of fossil fuels and changes in soil use.

“Technological innovation, research and the transfer of proposals for adapting to and mitigating climate change can help us to tap some of the opportunities and tackle some of the challenges, in areas such as¬ biodiversity, efficient water management, genetic erosion, the variability of species, biosafety, among others,” Cárdenas said.

During the technical forum, Andrei Bourrouet, Costa Rica’s Deputy Minister for Environment, Energy and Telecommunications, pointed out that at the COP 16 the developing countries, including India and China, had advocated the launch of a new world agreement on adaptation to climate change, as the Kyoto Protocol was set to expire in 2012, seven years after it established measures for cutting emissions and the states with the highest emissions pledged to pay financial compensation to the least polluting nations.

Bourrouet went on: “It will be an agreement based on consensus, with obligations and responsibilities for all the parties. The adoption of a new agreement, or the continuity of the Kyoto Protocol, is unlikely to be decided at the COP 17, but perhaps at the COP 18 (due to take place next year).”

For more information:

Central America gears up for the challenge on climate change 
gustavo.cardenas@iica.int