SLM Adoption Costs and Barriers

Up-front financing costs can be high, whilst on-farm benefits not realized until medium-long term

� Local credit markets very thin

� Local insurance options very limited

� Tenure Security & Management of Common-Pool Resources

� Limited Access to Information, e.g. Research & Extension

� Risk management and need for flexibility –especially with uncertain/changing climate conditions – decisions to make permanent changes more costly

Photos: FAO Mediabase

Value of ag. mitigation potentiallysignificant

Mitigation potential from agriculture, Annex I (Developed) and Non-Annex I (Developing) countries

Developing countries: $30 billion @$20/TCO2eq from top 4 mitigation actions

Cropland Management

Grazing land Management

Restore cultivated organic soils

Restore degraded lands

But only a small share of

what is needed

Source: FAO (preliminary estimates)

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

Current

investment

Meeting demand

in 2050

Public

Private

US$ billions per year (gross)

142

209

30

Additional

Funding for

Mitigation

Options for capturing synergiesLinking mitigation finance to FS

Carbon Benefit

T/Ha/Yr

D(T/Ha/Yr)

Options for capturing synergiesMRV costs vs Ag benefits

Principles to guide crediting

� Main objective of crediting soil carbon sequestration (mitigation) in smallholder agriculture is to support food security/ag. development

� State of science, institutional capacity, buyer’s demands, high heterogeneity and needs of smallholders suggests market based offsets (CDM approach) ‘not widely applicable’

� One potential area to focus on: Pilot for scaling up based on farming systems units looking at means, costs and benefis (to productivity, resilience and sequestration) of increasing carbon in system and directly tied to agricultural financing/developmentinstitution and under umbrella of NAMA.

� Also needed: Building up coordinated set of soil carbon measurement stratified by agroecosystem and major farming system transitions another key requirement.