THEME INFO PACKS : CLIMATE CHANGE

The importance of resilience has been covered before in the magazine. Issue 17.1 (Aril 2001) presented it as "the capacity of farmers, and other members of the community or society, to deal with disturbances and hazards by preventing or minimising losses and mitigating disaster to ensure food availability and sustain the agricultural production system". Back then, we were already considering the importance of global warming, and this issue included an interesting excerpt from a report written by Jules Pretty and Andrew Ball ("Agricultural influences on carbon emissions and sequestration: A review of ecidence and the emerging trading options):

"Agricultural systems can contribute to carbon emissions through several mechanisms: i) the direct use of fossil fuels in farm operations; ii) the indirect use of embodied energy in inputs that are energy-intensive to manufacture (particularly fertilisers); and iii) the cultivation of soils resulting in the loss of woody biomass and soil organic matter. On the other hand, agriculture also can be an accumulator of carbon, when organic matter is accumulated in the soil, or when aboveground woody biomass acts either as a permanent sink or is used as an energy source those substitutes for fossil energy.

"Income from trading carbon credits?
"The first carbon exchange or trading systems have set credit values from US$1.38 per tonne of carbon, though most commonly in the $2.50-5.00 range. For the United Kingdom, it is estimated that carbon sequestration could bring arable and grassland farmers between US$27million and US$220million per year if the government decided to pay for the ecological services provided by farmers. At current prices, it is clear that farmers are not set to become solely carbon farmers. However, systems accumulating carbon are also delivering many other public goods, such as improved biodiversity and clean water from watersheds, and policy makers may also seek to price these so as to increase the total payment package. Carbon, therefore, could represent an important new source of income for farmers, as well as helping to encourage farmers to adopt a wide range of sustainable practices."

The same issue included several other interesting articles:
Farmers' responses to reduce the risk of drought, by Owen Shumba
Looking at the series of droughts which affected Zimbabwe, especially between 1982-83, 1986-87 and 1991-92, the author describes farmers' coping strategies, including permaculture, water harvesting, infiltration pits, granaries, and the use of drought tolerant crops.
Red the whole article here.

Measuring farmers agroecological resistance to hirricane Mitch, by Eric Holt-Gimenez
Hurricane Mitch hit Central America in October 1998, causing enormous damage to infrastructure and industry, and also seriously affecting agricultural production. The countries hardest hit were Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala, showing that deforestation and non-sustainable practices had left many areas in these countries praticvularly vulnerable. Different NGOs in this region joined efforts to show that sustainable farms were more resistant than conventional farms, providing strong arguments for participatory and sustainable agricultural policies.
Read the whole article here.

More information? Please write to the editors, at ileia@ileia.nl