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Tuesday / November 19. 2024

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HomePosts Tagged "COP27"
R&D, Sustainability, World

The data shows the urgent need for improvement, as well as the potential for shared learning

“The state of food systems worldwide in the countdown to 2030”, published today by The Food Systems Countdown to 2030 Initiative (FSCI), provides the first science-based monitoring to guide decision-makers as they seek the wholesale transformation of the global agriculture and food systems. This transformation is needed urgently both to reduce the environmental impact of these systems and to mitigate the impact of climate change on them. The overarching objective is that all people – especially the most vulnerable – have equitable access to healthy diets through sustainable and resilient agriculture and food systems.

The UN Food Systems Summit catalysed agriculture and food system action, though policymakers often lack the data required to drive critical decisions. The FSCI is filling that gap, having identified an indicator framework composed of 50 indicators that monitor agriculture and food systems at a global level, using existing data to enable immediate action. Repurposing existing data, rather than carrying out time-consuming new research, means policymakers have quick access to relevant information.

Following this first global baseline, the FSCI will track agriculture and food systems annually until 2030, updating the framework as needed where new indicators or better data emerge.

Agriculture and food systems play a vital role in meeting all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), yet the SDGs are insufficient to monitor these systems. The FSCI fills this gap.

Agriculture and food systems transformation is essential if countries are going to meet their Nationally Determined Contributions. Yet this is still an emerging conversation: agriculture and food systems only played a small part in climate negotiations at COP27. They featured more strongly at the recent COP28 where over 150 countries signed the Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action and committed to incorporate agriculture and food systems into their climate plans by 2025 – very encouraging progress.

The data shows the urgent need for

Agrotech, Company News, Middle East countries, Sustainability

To become globally available to farmers interested in regenerative agriculture practices from 2023

 Israel-based Netafim, an Orbia business and a global leader in precision agriculture solutions, recently announced the first ever carbon credit programme for drip-irrigated rice. The aim of this inaugural program is to dramatically reduce methane emissions from rice cultivation to almost zero, while providing additional long-term income to growers. The first project for this program is located at the LaFagiana Farm in Venice, Italy and will be registered with Verra. The carbon credits programme will be available to farmers around the world interested in regenerative agriculture practices beginning in 2023.

Rice is the most prolific source of sustenance worldwide, approximately accounting for 21 per cent of global per capita caloric intake, and 27 per cent per capita caloric intake in developing countries. A staple for more than half of the world’s population, rice cultivation uses 30-40 per cent of the world’s annual consumption of freshwater while contributing to over 10 per cent of the world’s methane emissions.  

With Netafim’s innovation, carbon credits serve an important role in financially assisting farmers in adopting sustainable or regenerative agricultural practices that reduce or sequester emissions, with each credit representing one ton of CO2 equivalent emissions.

Sameer Bharadwaj, CEO of Orbia said, “Netafim’s carbon credit programme is a pioneering example of our company’s commitment to solving for global food security and economic enablement while contributing to a healthy planet. Through this programme, we are challenging 5,000-year-old assumptions about rice farming and demonstrating better, cleaner and more productive ways to sustain and advance lives around the world, by the billions.”

“If just 10 per cent of paddy rice farmers switch to drip, the drop in emissions will be equivalent to taking 40 million cars off the road,” said Gaby Miodownik, Orbia’s Executive Vice President & President, Precision Agriculture (Netafim). “This program marks the first time a carbon credit is being generated based on the application of irrigation technology.”

To become globally available to farmers interested