So, what is climate-smart agriculture?

My research project revolves around a few core concepts, the main once being Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA), Climate-Smart Villages (CVSs), and Community Based Organisations (CBOs).
So it’s easier for readers to understand what these things are I thought I’d do a few quick intro posts which help explain them starting with CSA.

CSA is an approach to agriculture which aims to tackle two major challenges, climate change and food insecurity, at the same time which has three main aims.
1: sustainably increasing agricultural productivity, to support equitable increases in farm incomes, food security and development;
2: adapting and building resilience of agricultural and food security systems to climate change at multiple levels; and
3: reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture (including crops, livestock and fisheries).

The dual challenges of climate change and an increasing global population mean that we need to figure out ways to produce more food, on the same amount or less land, while emitting less greenhouse gasses.

CSA is not a one size fits all way of farming, it’s a guiding concept that is context specific and will look very different depending on where and by who the ideas are being adopted, because climate change will impact different parts of the world in different ways.

If you want to learn more about CSA this article published by the CGIAR global programme on climate change, agriculture and food secuity is a good place to start and this video (below) produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is worth a watch if you want to understand how CSA might look in practice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUdNMsVDIZ0