About this book
This book reviews the state of agricultural climate change mitigation globally, with a focus on identifying the feasibility, opportunities and challenges for achieving mitigation among smallholder farmers. The purpose is ultimately to accelerate efforts towards mitigating land-based climate change. While much attention has been focused on forestry for its reputed cost-effectiveness, the agricultural sector contributes about ten to twelve per cent of emissions and has a large technical and economic potential for reducing greenhouse gases. The book does not dwell on the science of emissions reduction, as this is well covered elsewhere; rather, it focuses on the design and practical implementation of mitigation activities through changing farming systems.
"Climate Change Mitigation and Agriculture" includes chapters about experiences in developed countries, such as Canada and Australia, where these efforts also have lessons for mitigation options for smallholders in poorer nations, as well as industrialising countries such as Brazil and China. A wide range of agroecological zones and of aspects or types of farming, including livestock, crops, fish farming, fertilizer use and agroforestry, as well as economics and finance, is included. The volume presents a synthesis of current knowledge and research activities on this emerging subject. Together the chapters capture an exciting period in the development of land-based climate change mitigation as attention is increasingly focused on agriculture's role in contributing to climate change.
Contents
Part I: Introduction
1. Agriculture and Climate Change Mitigation: Designing Projects and Policies for Smallholder Farmers
2. Agricultural Mitigation Approaches for Smallholders in Different Farming Systems
3. Evaluating Synergies and Trade-offs Among Food Security, Development and Climate Change
4. Achieving Mitigation through Synergies with Adaptation
Part II: Institutional arrangements and incentives
5. Challenges Facing Agricultural Access to Carbon Markets
6. Reducing Project Costs and Risk for Farmers in Smallholder Agriculture Carbon Projects
7. How to Make Carbon Finance Work for Smallholders in Africa
8. Designing Agricultural Mitigation for Smallholders in Developing Countries: A Comparative Analysis of Projects in East Africa
9. Using Certification to Support Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in Agriculture
10. Lessons Learned from REDD for Agriculture
11. Sustainable Land Management and Carbon Finance: The Experience of the BioCarbon Fund
12. Financing Mitigation in Smallholder Agricultural Systems: Issues and Opportunities
13. Economics of Agricultural Carbon Sequestration in Sub-Saharan Africa
14. The Potential for Microfinance as a Channel for Carbon Payments
15. Payments for Environmental Services to Mitigate Climate Change: Agriculture and Forestry Compared
16. Avoided Deforestation on Smallholder Farms in the Brazilian Amazon
17. An Australian Landscape-based Approach: AFOLU Mitigation for Smallholders
18. Sustaining China's Agriculture in a Changing Climate: A Multidisciplinary Action through UK - China Cooperation
Part III: GHG Measurement and Accounting
19. Farm-scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions Using the Cool Farm Tool: Application of a Generic Farming Emissions Calculator in Developing Countries
20. Using Biogeochemical Process Models to Quantify Greenhouse Gas Mitigation from Agricultural Management
21. An Emissions-intensity Approach for Crediting Greenhouse Gas Mitigation in Agriculture: Reconciling Climate and Food Security Objectives in the Developing World
22. Emerging Techniques for Soil Carbon Measurements
23. Carbon Accounting for Smallholder Agricultural Soil Carbon Projects
24. Accounting for Quality in Agricultural Carbon Credits: A Verified Carbon Standard for Agricultural Land Management Projects
Part IV: Case studies: Sectors
25. Conservation Agriculture as a Means to Mitigate and Adapt to Climate Change: A Case Study from Mexico
26. Potential of Agricultural Carbon Sequestration in Sub-Saharan Africa
27. Livestock and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Mitigation Options and Trade-offs
28. Home on the Range: The Contribution of Rangeland Management to Climate Change Mitigation
29. Integrated Nutrient Management as a Key Contributor to China's Low Carbon Agriculture
30. Climate Change Mitigation in Agroforestry Systems: Linking Smallholders to Forest Carbon Markets
31. Livelihood and Environmental Trade-offs of Climate Mitigation in Smallholder Coffee Agroforestry Systems
32. Agricultural Intensification as a Climate Mitigation and Food Security Strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa
33. Carbon Trade-offs Along Tropical Forest Margins: Lessons from ASB Work in Cameroon
34. Mitigation Options from Forestry and Agriculture in the Amazon
Customer Reviews
Biography
Eva 'Lini' Wollenberg is a social scientist and faculty member at the University of Vermont coordinating mitigation research for the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security Research Program of the CGIAR.
Marja-Liisa Tapio-Bistrom is an agricultural economist and coordinator of the FAO Mitigation of Climate Change in Agriculture (MICCA) program.
Maryanne Grieg-Gran is Principal Researcher in the Sustainable Markets Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), London, UK.
Alison Nihart is a masters student in Natural Resources at the University of Vermont, USA.
