Below is an opinion piece originally published in the recent SinergiA newsletter - a collaboration between five Latin American PES networks. This edition of SinergiA focuses on agriculture's growing role in payments for ecosystem services schemes, and offers opinions, tools and methodologies, projects, publications, and events related to PES and agriculture in Latin America. SinergiA is available in Spanish, English, and Portuguese.

Though largely ignored in the rush to REDD, we contend that agricultural carbon initiatives are equally important to land-based carbon markets, both in Latin America and internationally. Without agricultural components, the integrity and viability of REDD projects is compromised, and the opportunity to develop carbon projects with strong co-benefits for food security, poverty reduction and ecosystem restoration is missed.

Agriculture accounts for 20% of total emissions in Latin America and the Caribbean. Large-scale commercial farms and ranches emit carbon via high use of fertilizer, tillage, irrigation and livestock wastes. Small - scale farmers live in landscape mosaics which store considerable carbon in perennial forest fragments, pastures, palms, hedges, scattered trees and crops. The landscapes contribute to emissions with widespread soil and vegetation degradation. The largest driver of deforestation is agriculture; its exclusion from climate mitigation frameworks makes REDD programs unsustainable.

Carbon markets must evolve to include agricultural mitigation activities. Examples include: reduced soil tillage intensity, reduced soil erosion, perennial crops that maintain root and branch systems year-round, vegetative soil cover, permanent vegetative cover in non-cropped areas, increased biomass in grazing systems through improved varieties and management, improved fertilizer use efficiency, improved livestock waste management and utilization of methane emissions for biogas; and reduced fossil energy use in farm operations. Such practices reduce farm risks and production costs, improve farmer incomes, protecting watershed services and conserve biodiversity. These benefits often exceed those of carbon payments in helping farmers shift to sustainable and profitable systems.

A movement is building to expand agricultural carbon markets globally. Certification standards are proliferating within voluntary markets. In regulatory markets, a work program on agriculture appears likely under the UNFCCC SBSTA coming out of the December COP in Cancun. It's time to move from small projects to whole supply chains and large landscape initiatives that support sustainable development.

Innovators in Latin America are leaders in mechanisms which reward farmers for stewardship.

• The Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Ecosystem Management Project piloted the use of payments to promote carbon sequestration along with biodiversity conservation, through silvopastoral practices in degraded pastures in Colombia, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
• CEDECO (Corporaciã³n Educativa para el Desarrollo Costarricense), is developing the potential of small-scale organic farming in Costa Rica, Cuba and Brazil to reduce GHG emissions and sequester carbon, and exploring the potential of landscape-scale projects for 'carbon-plus-biodiversity' that could be branded by the conservation values they achieve.
• Numerous regional projects are re-establishing or improving shade in coffee and cocoa plantations for carbon sequestration, and agricultural product certification programs are experimenting with climate-friendly labeling.

Despite inadequate field measurements in most Latin American farming systems, cost-effective MRV (monitoring, reporting, and verification) methods for field, farms and landscapes are rapidly developing. Colombia, Chile and Uruguay have joined the new Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases, now focused on high-input commercial systems. FAO is establishing a center to collect GHG emissions data for diverse farming systems.

To be financially viable, agricultural carbon projects need to reduce transaction costs, reduce costs of aggregating large numbers of farmers in climate deals, reduce risks to farmers, and empower them to negotiate reasonable agreements. Fortunately, the agricultural sector can build carbon projects on existing institutions such as farmer cooperatives, agribusiness outgrowing schemes, and territorial development initiatives. Costs can be reduced with improved local capacity for project development and management, access to project pre-financing, and simplified MRV. Latin American leaders must engage in structuring logical, functional, and regionally appropriate agricultural carbon finance systems.

Also posted on EKOECO.

Article title: "Fincas agroforestales contrarrestan pérdida de biodiversidad en el país" on La Nacion on 23 September 2010.

Las fincas que combinan sus cultivos con espacios boscosos ayudan a frenar la pérdida de biodiversidad, y a aumentar y mejorar la producción de café y cacao.

La combinación de actividades agrícolas y conservación del bosque se conoce como sistema agroforestal, y optar por él es tan simple como incluir árboles en la plantación o construir cercas vivas (formadas con árboles).

Según informes recientes de las Naciones Unidas, actualmente las especies de plantas y animales se pierden a un ritmo 100 veces mayor al natural.

Aumentan especies. Según Fabrice DeClerck, ecólogo de Comunidades y Paisaje, del Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (Catie), estudios realizados por esta institución han comprobado que en una finca agroforestal se observan más especies.

“Si en los alrededores de una cerca de postes muertos hay un promedio de 12 especies, una cerca viva puede tener entre 40 y 50 especies”, dijo DeClerck.

Otro ejemplo lo da el Proyecto de Cacao Centroamérica (PCC), una iniciativa del Catie y socios locales, que trabajan junto con 6.000 familias de seis países para aumentar la productividad de este cultivo sin dañar el ambiente.

Como parte del proyecto se han investigado las poblaciones de anfibios y reptiles.

En este sentido, se han registrado 22 especies de ranas y sapos en Talamanca, lo que representa el 10% del total de especies de este grupo que viven en Costa Rica.

Para Rolando Cerdas, responsable del PCC para Costa Rica y Panamá, esto evidencia la similitud existente en un sistema agroforestal de cacao.

“En un cacaotal de este tipo, la planta tira un montón de hojarasca y esto se vuelve un lugar ideal para anfibios y reptiles, así como para mamíferos que andan buscando sombra”, añadió Cerdas.

Una relación ganar-ganar. Asimismo, el finquero puede beneficiarse de los servicios que da el bosque en cuanto polinización, control de plagas, nutrientes y conservación del suelo y fuentes de agua.

“Por ejemplo, hemos medido y comparado la temperatura en las cercas vivas y las pasturas donde no hay sombra. En la época seca se han visto diferencias de hasta 10° Celsius”, dijo DeClerck.

Precisamente, el estrés térmico es una de las razones de baja productividad en ganado, y afecta en especial a las vacas que dan leche.

Una alta biodiversidad también ayuda con el control de plagas como la broca del café.

“En una de las investigaciones se colocaron trampas para la broca, tanto en el cafetal como en el bosque, y nos dimos cuenta de que los cafetales rodeados de árboles tenían menos problemas. El bosque cumple una función de barrera”, comentó el ecólogo del Catie.

Todos esos beneficios ambientales se traducen en una mayor y mejor producción.

Según un estudio de Taylor H. Ricketts en el 2004, publicado por la revista PNAS, un cafetal situado a 300 metros del bosque es más productivo y tiene menos frutos malformados que otro a un kilómetro de distancia.

Es más, el bosque de la finca que sirvió de objeto de estudio contribuyó con el equivalente a $60.000 en la producción total, lo cual representó el 7% de los ingresos de ese año.

“Claro, sin mercado o incentivos es muy difícil para los productores sostener un sistema agroforestal, pero existen oportunidades y cada vez son más”, apuntó Jeffrey Milder, director de Investigación de Socios para la Ecoagricultura, en referencia a los mercados diferenciados, donde se obtienen mejores precios si los productores cuentan con certificación ambiental.

Alternativa para ciudades. Para DeClerck, este modelo mixto podría replicarse en las urbes.

Debido a la combustión de fuentes fósiles y el reflejo de los rayos solares por el asfalto, las ciudades tienden a convertirse en “islas de calentamiento”.

Una mayor cobertura boscosa no solo ayudaría a reducir ese calor, también serviría de filtro de polución, lo cual mejoraría la calidad del aire. Además, se protegerían las fuentes de agua y se garantizaría el abastecimiento.

In June, EcoAgriculture Partners completed a report with the support of USAID on “Institutional Models for Carbon Finance to Mobilize Sustainable Agricultural Development in Africa”. The project sought to develop an inventory of agricultural greenhouse gas mitigation projects in sub-Saharan Africa and characterize key elements of project design, with special attention to institutional arrangements. The study identified 81 projects in 24 countries, and documented implementation status, mitigation practices, developers/investors, field program managers, sellers, buyers, land tenure status and support services from other intermediaries.

The report also identified institutional gaps that are hampering the success of these projects and possible interventions to overcome them. These needs include low transaction costs, risk management for farmers, secure land tenure and carbon rights, sufficient incentives for farmers to participate, access to financing for farmers and project developers, project management and implementation capacity, and sufficient demand for agricultural credits. Based on the inventory and the institutional needs analysis, recommendations are offered regarding roles for various sectors and organizations to fill these gaps. Roles for national governments, community organizations, local and national NGOs, research institutions, international donors and the private sector are considered.

This report will be available shortly.

For more information, contact Seth Shames, sshames@ecoagriculture.org.

Download PDF, 724KB

In 2009 and early 2010, EcoAgriculture Partners collaborated with Forest Trends and Climate Focus to assess the feasibility of an African Agricultural Climate Finance Facility. The study examines the state and potential of African agricultural carbon projects and lays out pathways for developing new scalable climate finance transaction models to offer African smallholder farmers opportunities to mitigate climate change while transitioning to more sustainable farming systems with greater adaptive capacity.

This report was written by Charlotte Streck, Michael Coren, Sara J. Scherr, Seth Shames, Michael Jenkins, and Sissel Waage, with contributions from Timm Tennigkeit, and support from the Rockefeller Foundation. It is based on an extensive process that included interviews, roundtable discussions—with thought leaders in a range of fields from carbon finance through African agriculture— and a literature review. 

For more information, contact Seth Shames, sshames@ecoagriculture.org. 

As the world’s second largest producer of soy, Brazil’s biodiversity is at risk in part due to the rapid expansion of production.  To move towards more sustainable practices, the Biodiversity and Agricultural Commodities Program (BACP) has recently awarded two soybean sector grants in Brazil to Instituto de Pesquisa da Amazônia (IPAM) and Aliança da Terra (AT). The new grantees will be joining four BACP oil palm grantees (Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil, Zoological Society of London, PanEco Foundation, Fauna & Flora International) whose projects are currently underway in Indonesia and Malaysia.

IPAM’s project will contribute to the scientific basis for assessing the biodiversity conservation value of soybean production frontiers in the Amazon. The project will use wild mammals as indicators of environmental health in agroindustrial landscapes and will examine ways to reduce freshwater pesticide contamination through alternative land management practices.  The project will be implemented in the Xingu River headwaters region in northeastern Mato Grosso, an area where most of the recent soy expansion has taken place.

AT’s project will expand the reach and scope of the organization’s Registry of Social-Environmental Responsibility (RSR) among soy producers in the Xingu River Basin. The RSR system collects information on rural properties and establishes areas for corrective action, with the aim to gradually improving social and environmental management. The process also identifies where good land stewardship practices have already been implemented. AT aims to expand the number of RSR participants by over 150 properties, covering approximately 2 million hectares of land.

To learn more about BACP, please visit http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/sustainability.nsf/Content/Biodiversity_BACP

Ecoagriculture Partners is pleased to announce its policy focused side event, "Ecoagriculture Landscapes: Mobilizing Action Together" on Thursday, 27 August 2009 at the 2nd World Agroforestry Congress in Nairobi, Kenya.

 

Ecoagriculture Partners is an international NGO working to promote development of ‘ecoagriculture landscapes’ that produce abundant food, rural livelihoods and ecosystem services. We partner with local and national Ecoagriculture Working Groups in Kenya, Uganda, Central America and the U.S., many of whom are actively involved in agroforestry.

 

This side event will update current and potential future partners about the recent work of Ecoagriculture Partners on:

• landscape planning and monitoring methods,
• green markets,
• climate policy and agriculture, 
• leadership development, and
• knowledge-sharing.

The group will discuss strategies for mobilizing policy action nationally and internationally to promote ecoagriculture. It will also offer an opportunity for Working Group partners to catch up with one another.

 

Key Contacts:

Sara J. Scherr, President, Ecoagriculture Partners or, Louise Buck, Ecoagriculture Partners/Cornell University

 

The side event will be held in Room 14 from 13:00-14:30 at the United Nations Complex in Gigiri, Nairobi. You can find the full list of side events here: http://www.worldagroforestry.org/WCA2009/side_events

The 2nd World Congress of Agroforestry is being held from 23-28 August 2009 in Nairobi, Kenya. You can find valuable information about the Congress, including visa requirements, discounted airfare, accommodation and schedule of events at: http://www.worldagroforestry.org/wca2009/

The BACP is proud to announce the release of the call for applications to grants for the soy sector.

Grant applications are invited for funding projects that contribute to the preservation of biodiversity of global significance within soy agricultural landscapes by reducing the negative impacts of soy production and commercialization and promoting biodiversity-friendly production, demand, and commercialization of sustainable soy.

Interested and eligible applicants are requested to submit a project proposal following the guidelines and submission instructions provided on the BACP website.

Round 1: Project concepts submitted before May 8, 2009 are currently being evaluated

Round 2: Project concepts submitted before December 1, 2009 will be evaluated in January, 2010.

Please see the BACP website for more information on the call for soybean sector grants.

BACP is proud to announce the award of its first palm oil sector grants:

Increasing the effectiveness of Biodiversity-Related RSPO Principles and Criteria submitted by Lead Partner, Zoological Society of London. Full project description here.

RSPO Biodiversity Technical Committee and RSPO Biodiversity Coordinator submitted by, Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). Full project description here.

Pilot Study to undertake palm-oil cultivation according to RSPO-guidelines on fallow land, in the context of relocating palm-oil concessions threatening the last remaining high biodiversity coastal peat swamp rainforests of Aceh submitted by Lead Partner, PanEco Foundation. Full project description here.

BACP expects to release a 2nd palm oil RFA by April of this year. The 2nd palm oil RFA will target components of BACP not addressed by applicants involved in the first RFA. The four components of BACP include: removing policy barriers; supporting better production; increasing demand for biodiversity-friendly products; and encouraging financial services to support biodiversity-friendly practices.

Please see the BACP website at http://www.bacp.net for more information on the first palm oil sector grants awarded.