• The pillars of Climate-smart Agriculture

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA), as defined and presented by FAO at the Hague Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change in 2010, contributes to the achievement of sustainable development goals. It integrates the three dimensions of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental) by jointly addressing food security and climate challenges. It is composed of three main pillars:

1. Sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and incomes;
2. Adapting and building resilience to climate change;
3. Reducing and/or removing greenhouse gases emissions.
4. Productivity:CSA aims to sustainably increase agricultural productivity and incomes from crops, livestock and fish, without having a negative impact on the environment. This, in turn, will raise food and nutritional security. A key concept related to raising productivity is sustainable agricultural intensification.
5. Adaptation:CSA aims to reduce the exposure of farmers to short-term risks, while also strengthening their resilience by building their capacity to adapt and prosper in the face of shocks and longer-term stresses. Particular attention is given to protecting the ecosystem services which ecosystems provide to farmers and others. These services are essential for maintaining productivity and our ability to adapt to climate changes.
6. Mitigation: Wherever and whenever possible, CSA should help to reduce and/or remove greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This implies that reduce emissions for each calorie or kilo of food, fiber and fuel that we produce. That we avoid deforestation from agriculture. And that we manage soils and trees in ways that maximizes their potential to acts as carbon sinks and absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. For this reason, mitigation is one of the three pillars of climate-smart agriculture.

• The climate-smart agriculture approach

Climate Smart Agriculture approach is an approach to guide the management of agriculture in the era of climate change. CSA is not a set of practices that can be universally applied, but rather an approach that involves different elements surrounded in local contexts. CSA relates to actions both on-farm and beyond the farm, and incorporates technologies, policies, institutions and investment.   The CSA approach is still relatively new and under continuous development. The approach involves tools to identify climate-smart sustainable agricultural growth pathways for given locations and situations. Also, CSA aims to identify technical and economic principles that can be applied in the development of climate-smart action options that are embedded in national and local institutional frameworks.

The major components of climate-smart agriculture approach are:

• Management of farms, crops, livestock, aquaculture and capture fisheries to balance near-term food security and livelihoods needs with priorities for adaptation and mitigation.
• Ecosystem and landscape management to conserve ecosystem services that are important for food security, agricultural development, adaptation and mitigation.
• Services for farmers and land managers to enable better management of climate risks/impacts and mitigation actions.
• Changes in the wider food system including demand-side measures and value chain interventions that enhance the benefits of CSA.

Actions to implement a CSA approach (CSA approaches) are:

• Expanding the evidence base: One of the key pieces of information that agricultural policy makers need, and often lack, are the current and near-future projected effects of climate change in their country, and the implications for the agricultural priorities and programs of the country. Factors such as increasing rainfall variability, delayed onset of the rainy season, and increasing seasonal maximum temperatures, are all examples of climate change impacts that are already being realized and different responses are needed for effective adaptation for each of these. Identifying effective adaptation options to maintain and enhance the capacity of agriculture to generate productivity and income increases needed for food security is thus one fundamental objective of the CSA evidence base. Estimates of the potential reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (or increased carbon sequestration) that adaptation strategies can generate is a second key objective of the evidence base, as this is essential for accessing climate finance for mitigation. These two elements of the evidence base can be used to develop recommendations on the type of practice or change in agricultural systems needed for CSA. The final major objective of the evidence base is to generate information on the barriers to adoption of practice changes identified as CSA priorities, as well as the policy and institutional responses that can be made to overcome them.
• Supporting enabling policy frameworks: Implementing CSA requires the development of supportive policies and plans, as well as coordination across processes and institutions responsible for agriculture, climate change, food security and land use, to avoid contradictions or inconsistencies. This is accomplished through dialogue amongst key stakeholders in a participatory process to build consent in identifying and managing trade offs and capturing
  any synergies across major policy efforts for agriculture and climate change. Inclusion of farmers (women and men), resource managers and value-chain participants, including the private sector is crucial.
• Strengthening national and local institutions: Building the capacity of national policy makers to participate in global-level policy fora on climate change and agriculture, and to reinforce their linkages with local-level governance structures contributes to an enabling environment for coherent action across levels and the two policy2 Strengthening local institutions to empower, enable and motivate farmers is essential. Emerging evidence indicates that there are five important enabling actions needed from local institutions to support CSA. These are: 1) facilitating the capacity of farmers (and herders, fishers and foresters) to work together in a coordinated fashion to manage land and water resources across landscapes, through land tenure systems, water-use groups, farmer’s organizations etc. 2) increasing the flow of information between national and local levels-through institutions such as extension and weather information services, 3) increasing access to credit for investing in sustainable land and water management through micro-finance institutions, 4) improving timely access to the type and amount of inputs (such as seeds and inorganic fertilizer) needed for enhancing efficient use in agricultural production systems, and 5) supporting effective risk management at the farm level through coordinated actions that may include insurance, safety nets, income diversification and storage capacity.
• Enhancing financing options: Transition to climate-smart agricultural development pathways requires new investments. Innovative financing mechanisms that link and blend climate and agricultural finance and investments from public and private sectors are a key means of implementing CSA. A key opportunity for CSA, particularly among the international community, is to unlock both agriculture and climate finance for institutional change at the national and local level, including improving access to capital, insurance products and other safety nets among smallholder farmers. Climate finance represents a significant additional source of finance to the agricultural sector which faces a considerable funding gap. New climate financing instruments such as the green climate fund are currently under development and could be a way of spurring sustainable agricultural development. Strong and all-encompassing Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) are key national policy instruments important in creating links to national and international sources of finance.
• Implementing practices at field level: Farmers are the primary custodians of knowledge about their environment, agro-ecosystems, crops, livestock, and local climatic patterns. Adapting to CSA must be related to local farmers’ knowledge, requirements and priorities. Local projects and institutions support farmers to identify suitable climate-smart options that can be easily adopted and implemented. For example: This, has been done through Farmer Field Schools in Ethiopia.