Investigating the dynamics of resilience and greenhouse gas performance of pastoral cattle systems in southern Ethiopia

Context: Pastoral and agro-pastoral (PAP) systems in East Africa face a range of challenges including increased climate variability. Various measures have been proposed to improve the resilience of pastoral/agro-pastoral (PAP) systems to drought. However, identifying the most effective measure for a given system and location is complicated, and tools are required to appraise measures on a consistent basis.Objective: This paper develops a model of a PAP system and uses it to assess the effects of four measures (Index-based livestock insurance, IBLI; Commercial destocking with an early warning system, EWS; Rangeland restoration, RR; Fodder planting, FP) on the resilience of the PAP system. It also quantifies the greenhouse gas (GHG) effects of the measures, thereby identifying potential trade-offs and synergies between the policy objectives of resilience and climate smart agriculture (CSA).Methods: A dynamic model of the Borena pastoral cattle system was developed to undertake the analysis. At its core is a herd model that calculates the changes in cattle population over time. Feed availability and drought occurrence affect fertility and mortality rates, which in turn determine the population and (meat and milk) production. A suite of indicators covering the three dimensions of CSA (increasing productivity, enhancing resilience and reducing GHG emissions) were developed, and used to compare the situation with and without measures.Results and discussions: Destocking with an early warning system provides the biggest increases (relative to the no measure situation) in production and profit, due to the way it changes the herd size and structure. It maintains a larger herd than any of the other measures, and a greater proportion of the herd are adult females. Fodder planting and rangeland restoration provide moderate increases in production and profit. Index-based livestock insurance provides a moderate increase in protein production, but has no effect on profit, as it is designed to reduce risk rather than increase productivity or profit, at least in the short term.All of the measures increase the total emissions relative to the no measure scenario. In terms of the three dimensions of climate-smart agriculture, IBLI leads to some improvements in productivity and resilience but leads to large increases in total emissions, and modest increases in emissions intensity (EI). EWS leads to large increases in productivity and resilience. However, it also leads to large increases in total emissions and a mixed effect on EI. FP and RR improve productivity and increase total emissions, while having little effect on EI or resilience.Significance: This paper illustrates the way in which systems dynamic model can be used to appraise measures designed to improve resilience. The result identify potential synergies and tensions between the goals of resilience and climate smart agriculture, and raises the question of whether fully climate-smart goals are viable in these systems

Agricultural biomass as provisioning ecosystem service: quantification of energy flows

Agro-ecosystems supply provisioning, regulating and cultural services to human society. This study focuses on the agro-ecosystem provisioning services regarding the production of agricultural biomass. These services strongly respond to the socio-economic demands of human beings, and are characterised by an injection of energy in the ecosystems production cycle which is often exceeding the ecological capacity of the ecosystem, i.e. the overall ability of the ecosystem to produce goods and services linked to its bio-physical structure and processes that take place during the agricultural production. Agricultural production is identified as ecosystem service in widely recognised ecosystem service frameworks, but currently there is no clear agreement within the scientific and policy communities on how the ecological-socio-economic flow linked to this provisioning service should be assessed, beyond a mere accounting of yields. This study attempts to provide a new insight to this issue by proposing an approach based on the energy budget, which takes into consideration the energy needed by the ecosystem to supply the service. The approach is based on the concepts of Energy Return on Investment (EROI) and Net Energy Balance (NEB), and considers different bio-physical structures and processes of agro-ecosystems. The work is structured in three parts: the first aims at estimating inputs (machinery, seeds, fertilizers, irrigation, labour) in energy terms; the second at estimating biomass output in energy terms; the third to compare actual agricultural production with three reference scenarios encompassing a range of human input (no input – low input – high input scenarios). Results show that in general terms cereal and grassland systems have the largest energy gains (both in terms of EROI and NEB). Such systems are characterised by a lower economic value of their output compared to other producing systems such as fruits, which have lower energy gains but a higher embodied energy, which is recognized in the market as valuable. Comparison of actual production systems with the high input scenario confirms that current production in Europe is already highly intensive, and that increasing the energy input would not improve the efficiency of the conversion of such additional energy into biomass. Overall, the proposed approach seems a useful tool to identify which are the factors in the agricultural production process that could be modified to improve the energy efficiency in agricultural systems and the sustainability of their production. This study can be considered as a first step in the assessment of the total energy balance of the agro-ecosystem. In fact it deals with the quantification of energy regarding human inputs and the corresponding output and further analysis should address crucial issues such as the quality of the energy and the embodied energy in the plant production, which will help to understand the full complexity of the agro-ecosystemJRC.H.4-Monitoring Agricultural Resource

Prioritizing climate-smart cattle farming practices and technologies for sustainable livestock production in Colombia’s Orinoquia region

The Orinoquia region in Colombia is home to diverse ecosystems, including forests and various agroecological zones, but extensive cattle ranching poses a significant challenge as it contributes to deforestation and threatens the region's valuable forest resources. To address this issue, there is a growing interest in promoting low-carbon land use and practices that increase adaptation and resilience to climate change. Climate-smart cattle farming (CSCF) integrates adaptation, resilience, and mitigation strategies to ensure sustainable and profitable productivity. This study aimed to identify, evaluate, and prioritise CSCF practices and technologies for the Orinoquia region in Colombia in a participatory manner. The framework developed for the study involved a first phase of identification and evaluation of CSCF practices and technologies based on evidence from the literature, followed by a second phase of classification and prioritisation of practices through participatory processes with key stakeholders in the region. CSCF practices were evaluated and ranked by five pillars: productivity, mitigation, adaptation, economic feasibility, and ease of implementation (perception pillar). Indicators analysed included animal stocking rate, weight gain, duration of practice evidence, enteric methane emission intensity, soil carbon stock, establishment costs, and forage production in high and low precipitation seasons, ease of implementation, and level of interest in the practice by the producers. The study found that intensive silvopastoral systems for browsing, improved pastures plus rotational grazing, and grazing management practices represented the CSCF options with the greatest productive, environmental, and economic benefits. These practices can help promote a productive, profitable, and climate-adapted livestock sector in the region. The participatory approach used in the study can also facilitate alignment between sectors and policies and help develop farmers' capacities and knowledge to make climate-smart choices in their livestock production systems. In conclusion, promoting climate-smart cattle farming practices is crucial for ensuring sustainable and profitable productivity in the Orinoquia region of Colombia. The participatory approach used in this study can help identify, evaluate, and prioritise CSCF practices and technologies that are productive, profitable, low-carbon and climate-adapted

Making climate finance work in agriculture

This discussion paper was produced as a background documentfor the 2016 FAO State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) report. It was produced through desk research and analysis of existing agricultural and climate finance literature. Moreover, qualitative interviews with key experts representing different stakeholder groups in the agriculture, climate, and financial sectors were conducted to inform the potential opportunities and innovations that should be further explored to make climate finance work for agriculture. Finally, a collection of supporting case studies were provided by different stakeholders to showcase some of the most successful and innovative examples already being implemented in the climate finance community.It is important to note that this is a discussion paper that aims to explore the intersection between climate and agriculture finance by generating dialogue. Hence, the paper explores a relatively new field and proposes innovative interventions that either are being tested or could be tested to increase the leverage of private capital and strengthen the links between financial institutions on the one hand and smallholder farmers and SMEs on the other. The objective of the paper is to generate discussion around this topic and, therefore, no blanket recommendations or descriptive interventions are proposed. A growing population and changing diets are driving up the demand for food. Production is struggling to keep up as crop yields level off in many parts of the world, ocean health declines, and natural resources— including soils, water and biodiversity—are stretched dangerously thin. Climate change is critically interrelated with agriculture. On the one hand, agriculture is extremely vulnerable to climate change. This paper proposes three different avenues to use climate finance to achieve this goal: a) Designing and adapting innovative mechanisms to leverage additional sources of capital, from both public and private sources, that can be directed towards climate smartinvestments in the agriculture sector. b) Identifying entry points for directing climate finance into agriculture and for linking FIs to smallholders and agricultural SMEs, including through capacity building and technical assistance. c) Providing technical assistance to increase investments in agriculture. Finally, this paper presents several suggestions to contribute to the achievement of the ideas presented in this paper, including the need for increased knowledge on innovative financial instruments and mechanisms, bridging information gaps, identifying opportunities, promoting dialogue and cooperation, and designing an action plan to move this agenda forward