1WWW.VU.EDU.AU
Using ICT for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigationthrough Agro-ecology in the Developing World
ICT4S-2013: The First International Conference onInformation and Communication Technologies for Sustainability, ETH, Zurich, February 14-16, 2013.Helena Grunfeld, John HoughtonVictoria University, Melbourne, Australia
2CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC ECONOMIC STUDIES – VICTORIA UNIVERSITY
• Motivation for the paper• Agro-ecological farming• Agriculture, climate change, poverty reduction, ICT• Using ICT for scaling organic input• Enabling conditions at the macro-level• Research agenda• Recommendations
Outline
3CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC ECONOMIC STUDIES – VICTORIA UNIVERSITY
Focus of paper and presentation
Agriculture
Poverty reduction and
human development
ICT
Use of ICT for agroecological farming for
• climate change adaptation and mitigation and• poverty reduction and human development
Climate change adaptation and
mitigationWorking
hypothesis for scaling organic input to agro-
ecological farming,
facilitated by ICT
4CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC ECONOMIC STUDIES – VICTORIA UNIVERSITY
Motivation for study
How can ICT be used to support sustainable farming methods?
• Working hypothesis for scaling of organic input to agriculture
• Use ICT to achieve sustainability and poverty reduction
5CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC ECONOMIC STUDIES – VICTORIA UNIVERSITY
Agro-ecological farming
• Convergence of agronomy and ecology • Enhances agricultural systems by mimicking natural processes• Based on science and practices• Improves the resilience and sustainability of food systems• Strong conceptual connections with the right to food • Supported by an increasingly wide range of experts within the scientific
community, international agencies, incl. FAO and UNEP.
From Report submitted by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right tofood, Olivier De Schutter to the UN General Assembly, 2010
6CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC ECONOMIC STUDIES – VICTORIA UNIVERSITY
Agriculture/climate change/poverty reduction
• Agriculture: 30% of GHG emissions causing global climate change• Indirectly: 13%, including from fertilisers and livestock• Indirectly: 17%, mainly through deforestation and land use changes
• Agro-ecological agriculture suggested as suitable for adaptation and mitigation• Also poverty reduction properties – potentially cheaper inputs• Potential for unskilled job opportunities
• Conflicting views re impacts of agro-ecological farming• Africa: yields of small-scale farmers have doubled• Meta-analysis: lower yields encourage land clearing• Can take several years to reach comparable yields
7CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC ECONOMIC STUDIES – VICTORIA UNIVERSITY
Agro-ecological farming requires different inputs and is knowledge intensive
Information Decision by farmer
Application of new
methodsKnowledge
Different inputs
Awareness
8CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC ECONOMIC STUDIES – VICTORIA UNIVERSITY
Inputs into agro-ecological farming
Composting at Trorkeat Village, Mesang District, Prey Veng Province, Cambodia
9CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC ECONOMIC STUDIES – VICTORIA UNIVERSITY
Inputs into agro-ecological farming
CSARO: Community Sanitation and Recycling Organisation – outskirts of Phnom Penh
10CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC ECONOMIC STUDIES – VICTORIA UNIVERSITY
Roles of ICT in scaling inputs to agro-ecology
• Information for knowledge exchange• Open distance learning• Open educational resources• Open access to research
• Communication: farmers-researchers-markets• Facilitates transparency critical for trust in organic supply chain
• Market information, e.g. price• Reduces asymmetry between farmers and traders• But also requires access to other resources to be effective
• Supply chain productivity improvements and innovations
11CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC ECONOMIC STUDIES – VICTORIA UNIVERSITY
Enabling macro-level conditions
• Policy intervention required: market does not pay for negative externalities of agriculture
• Must pay attention to interconnected dimensions of• sustainable agriculture,• food security, • climate change, • poverty reduction, and • Information systems to support these linkages
• Enabling policies likely to be more successful than coercive• Property rights (address “land grabs”)• Funding
• Governments, NGOs, aid agencies• Climate change funding sources, e.g. Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and
Payment for Environmental Services (PES).
12CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC ECONOMIC STUDIES – VICTORIA UNIVERSITY
Research agenda
• Ascertain sustainability and poverty reduction outcomes of such initiatives – requires the development of models for evaluation
• How is ICT used and how could it be better used in the value chain in agro-ecological farming• What software tools would be appropriate in the different stages of the value chain
• Investigate potential market for commercial input into organic farming in developing countries:• What are the constraints facing this sector – supply and demand?• What role can ICT play to overcome constraints?
13CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC ECONOMIC STUDIES – VICTORIA UNIVERSITY
Recommendations
• The United National Environment Programme - 2011 report “Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication” – to act on its recommendations about up-scaling green inputs into agro-ecological agriculture
• Donors supporting agriculture and/or ICT4D (implementations and research) projects to encourage agro-ecological farming, incorporating human development and poverty reduction objectives.
• Agro-ecological farming to become eligible for funding from clean development mechanism sources, subject to meeting human development and poverty reduction criteria