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Colleen Dardagan <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
PUTTING agriculture at the heart of a climate change policy is behind a book launched at the Agriculture and Rural Development Day in Durban at the weekend. <\/p>\n
Written by Charlie Pye-Smith, the book shows how global warming is changing the face of farming around the world. <\/p>\n
Farming accounts for 29 percent of the gross domestic products in developing countries and provides jobs for 65 percent of their populations. <\/p>\n
\u201cAgriculture is not just a victim of climate change, but directly responsible for 10 to 12 percent of human-generated greenhouse gas emissions. This excludes emissions resulting from fuel use and fertiliser production,\u201d he writes. <\/p>\n
According to the book, over the next four decades, food production must rise by 70 percent to feed a population increase from 7 billion to 9bn people. <\/p>\n
But to increase food production without further increasing greenhouse gas emissions is a tall order. <\/p>\n
However, Pye-Smith suggests there are reasons to be optimistic although solutions are dependent on international climate change negotiations and national policymaking recognising the threat. <\/p>\n
\u201cA failure to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and make the shift to climate-smart agriculture would put future food security at risk. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is one of the compelling reasons why agriculture would be at the heart of the international climate-change negotiations,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
Agriculture emission fast facts <\/p>\n
l Agriculture\u2019s share of human- generated methane emissions is staked at 47 percent. <\/p>\n
l Agriculture clearance is thought to account for three-quarters of all tropical deforestation. <\/p>\n
l Sub-Saharan crop yields will have to increase by 230 percent by 2050. <\/p>\n
l About 500 million hectares of agricultural land is moderately or severely degraded in Africa. <\/p>\n
l About 33 percent of all cropland is devoted to growing animal feed. <\/p>\n
Climate Smart Agriculture \u2013 what is it? <\/p>\n
l Harvesting rainwater. <\/p>\n
l Livestock farmers need to change feeding regimes and improve pasture management. <\/p>\n
l Growing crops under glass could prove to be one of the best ways to adapt to climate change and variability. <\/p>\n
l Reduce post-harvest losses. <\/p>\n
l Adopt crop rotation, mulching and use of nitrogen-fixing legumes. <\/p>\n
l Targeted use of mineral fertilisers and efficient water and waste management. <\/p>\n
l New development to take place on degraded land. <\/p>\n
l Preparing land using minimum tillage and disturbance of the soils. <\/p>\n
l Covered soil with organic matter. <\/p>\n
l Use agriculture to generate energy as well as carbon sinks. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Colleen Dardagan PUTTING agriculture at the heart of a climate change policy is behind a book launched at the Agriculture and Rural Development Day in Durban at the weekend. Written by Charlie Pye-Smith, the book shows how global warming is changing the face of farming around the world. Farming accounts for 29 percent of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-5916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}