Climate Smart Agriculture and agroecology:

Selected experiences from CIRAD in Latin America

J.F. Le Coq, R. Poccard-Chapuis,M. Gomes, S. Plassin, MG Piketty

Context and issues of Climate Smart Agriculture and Agroecology in Latin America

• Vulnerability to climate change (Drought & extreme events)

• Degradation of natural resources: deforestation of Amazonia,…

• Food system issue: double burden (punctual undernutrition + obesity)

• Dichotomy / competition / confrontation / between family agriculture and agribusiness

• Inequity rural / urban, indigenous issues• Strong civil society and Social movement toward

agroecology

Cirad Partnerships in Latin America involved in climate smart agriculture and agroecology/forestry research

PP-ALNetwork on public policies

and rural development in Latin America

Partners:40 institutions, including universities, national

and regional research center, and regional cooperation bodies, in 12 countries

PCP AFS-PC(agroforesta)

AMAZONIE

PP-AL

Forest, agriculture, livestock and territorial dynamics in the Amazon

DP - Amazônia

Partners:Embrapa Amazônia Oriental

Universidade Federal do Pará,

Universidade Federal Rural da Amazônia

Restoring efficient landscape in cattle ranching basins: jurisdictional approach in the Brazilian Amazon

R. Poccard-Chapuispoccard@cirad.fr

M. R. de Oliveira GomesMario.gomes@embrapa.br

S. PlassinSophie.plassin@inrae.fr

M.G. Pikettypiketty@cirad.fr

Context: pasture intensification to

avoid deforestation ?

“Restoring degraded pasture is a way to increase agricultural production, not needing to expand

new pasture in forest areas”

“Increasing pasture and herds productivity without removing a single tree”

“Forest restoration needs specific incentive, as it does not generate incomes”

“Farmers needs payment to restore forest cover, since they have no gain on this land ”Forest

Livestock

Disconnected advocacies

Observed and spontaneous practices:

Pasture Intensification

New Farming designAccording to land suitability

Low agricultural suitability land

High agricultural suitability land

Intensive practicesAbandonment / fallow

Forest restoration

New deforestation

= farm level synergies

to be coordinated at jurisdictional

to restore landscape Improved pasture

Landscape transition at farm level:From “mining natural resources”, to “managing landscape suitability’s”

PlateauPlateau

Valley slopeValley slope

Escarpment Escarpment

New forest matrix

covering critical areas for ecosystem services:soil protection, water cycle, climate regulation,biodiversity protection.

Improved pasture

to increase incomes in high agricultural suitability areas

Efficient landscape

Pasture and forest cover linked by land suitability

Microzoning law in Paragominas municipality

Mapping Land suitability at jurisdictional level to drive farm practices

Public policies linked with zoning:- Compliance to Forest Act to achieve legal forest

cover- Municipal license for agricultural production- Green Finance

Soil ErosionForest Biomass Connectivity(PC index)

Monitoring Reporting Verifying (MRV) at jurisdictional level to attract investors

Climate Smart Landscape restoration at jurisdictional level: what we learned ?

Mapping Land suitability is a key point to drive climate smart landscape restoration

Pasture intensification could be a strong driver for landscape restoration and forest protection, if regulated in a jurisdictional legislation and spatial microzoning tool.

Low intensification practices are preferable, as they are accessible for more farmers and regions. High technology is not a strategy for landscape restoration (only for few farms).

Green finance could incentive pasture intensification to achieve their goals and build climate smart landscape, if the financial product is designed according to jurisdictional policies.

• Jurisdictional approaches are pertinent at local level, but needs outscaling to build credible value chains and territorial labels. Regional or multilevel policies are needed.

• The accuracy and the price of topographic data are crucial to plan and monitor climate smart landscape restoration. Partnerships with remote sensing providers are needed to turn accessible land suitability tools.

• Green finance should support water cycle regulation, soil protection and biodiversity protection, behind carbon storage and zero deforestation. Multicriteria MRV tools are needed.

Climate Smart Landscape restoration at jurisdictional level: what are the perspectives ?

Experiences from PP-AL network :

State and dynamics of CSA conducive policies, currents limits and perspectives

J.F. Le Coq jflecoq@cirad.fr; jf.lecoq@cgiar.org

Climate Smart Agriculture in policies

• CSA concept contributed to strengthen agenda setting of agriculture in international climate agenda (Hrabanski, 2020)

• Climate adaptation and mitigation policies documents related to agricultural sector are increasing in the LAC

• Some specific CSA oriented policies framework: the SICA regional strategy for promoting CSA (EASAC)

• An achievement for Science policy-engagement strategy (Meza et al, 2018)

• More than 200 changes in policies, institutions and funding toward the CSA scaling, since 2017 (Collazos et al, 2020)

Policies and instrument for CSA• Enabling environment for CSA rely on adoption

of a policy and instrument mix beyond agricultural / or / climate policies

• Few new instruments are actually implemented, in most of the cases existing sectorial instruments are reframed with new narrative (eg: Brazil)

• Local reinterpretation of climate oriented instruments occurs toward sub sectorial interest (ex MAEC in Banana sector in Guadeloupe)

• Fragmentation and coherence issue are prone to occur

• Coordination problem rely on divergence between coalition with contrasted value and interest regarding climate issue and solutions (Eg Brazil, Honduras)

• Instruments complementarity matters !! (Milhorance et al,2020)

Brazil, Milhorance, et al 2020

Honduras, Le Coq et al 2018

CSA and agroecology

• International debate between tenants of CSA and Agroecology concept

• Diversity of models and trajectories(Sustainable agriculture, Organic, Agroecology)

• Few agroecology comprehensive policies and programs, but agroecology conducive instruments fragmented in various policies domains

• Existing conducive policies came from civil society movement and coalitions

• Limits • Fragmentation among tenant of alternative agriculture

movements, and low coordination with other consumers organizations

• Political dismantling in some countries (e.g. Brazil)

Methods and approach to promote CSA adoption (1)

• CSA innovation platforms (Andrieu et al, 2019)

• (1) Exploration of initial situation: identification of local stakeholders, existing farming systems, and specific constraints for CSA adoption

• (2) Co-definition of the innovation platform: definition of structure and rules of functioning

• (3) Shared diagnosis: definition of main challenges to be solved

• (4) Identification and ex ante assessment of new farming systems: assessment of the potential performances of solutions prioritized by the members of the innovation platform under CSA pillars

• (5) Experimentation: tests the prioritized solutions on-farm;

• (6) Assessment of the co-design process of climate-smart farming systems

• (7) Definition of strategies for scaling up/out

Methods and approach to promote CSA adoption (2)

• Climate Smart Villages (sustainable territories adapted to climate: TESAC)

• Alliance with local stakeholders (science, NGO, Farmers organization, …)

• Experimentation and document the benefice of CSA practices

• Collective action principles

Methods and approach to promote CSA adoption (3)

• Agro climatic platforms• Creation of local information on

climate variability• Modeling of agronomic response

to climate • Technical advisory based on local

observation and climate information

• Science Policy Engagement • Use windows of opportunities• Create alliance between research

and decision makers• Support public administration with

information and methodological process

Perspective on policy, institutions and enabling environment

• Post Covid, a momentum for CSA / agroecology further integration in policies ?

• Focus on the implementation process of policies and instruments more than design of new policy documents, supporting coordination between local initiative and national frameworks, and coherent policy / instrument mix implementation

• Develop comprehensive and rigorous evaluation of existing policies, taking into account technical, socio economical and equity criteria (M&E)

• Strengthen among pro agroecology actors’ coalition through dialogue and collaborative & citizen science

• Facilitate digital agriculture access to small holders• Develop long term financial mechanism and facilitate access to green

funding

J.F. Le Coq jflecoq@cirad.fr; jf.lecoq@cgiar.org

R. Poccard-Chapuispoccard@cirad.fr