As highlighted by ActionAid Malawi, climate-smart agriculture (CSA) causes confusion and in an era of climate change, agroecology must lead the way.
CSA is gaining attention among governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), academics, corporations and researchers.
With the impacts of climate change being felt on food systems around the world and the contribution of agriculture to global emissions also gaining attention, agriculture is one of the subjects at the heart of climate change.
But there is growing confusion and debate over what the term ‘climate-smart agriculture’ really means and whether it really can benefit food systems in the face of climate change.
The concept of ‘climate-smart agriculture’ was originally developed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Bank, claiming that ‘triple wins’ in agriculture could be achieved in mitigation (reducing greenhouse gas emissions), adaptation (supporting crops to grow in changing climate conditions), and increasing crop yields.
A number of industrialised countries (the United States, in particular), along with a number of agribusiness corporations, are now the most enthusiastic promoters of the concept.
But increasingly, civil society and farmer organisations express concerns that the term can be used to greenwash industrial agricultural practices that will harm future food production.
Some governments and NGOs also fear that pressure to adopt CSA will translate into obligations for developing countries’ food systems to take on an unfair mitigation burden.
They point out that their agricultural systems have contributed the least to the problem, but that mitigation obligations could limit their ability to effectively adapt to the climate challenges ahead.
Ultimately, there are no means to ensure that CSA is actually smart for the climate, for agriculture, or for farmers.
There are no meaningful criteria for what can or cannot be called ‘climate smart’. Practices or corporations that are destructive to the climate, the environment and farmers are free to use the term.
Furthermore, there are no social safeguards to prevent so-called ‘climate smart’ activities from carrying out land grabbing, undermining farmers’ livelihoods, pulling farmers into debt or leading to farmers being sued for activities such as seed saving.
Different corporations, particularly the world’s largest fertiliser manufacturers, and others that promote synthetic agrochemicals, intensive factory farming of livestock, and industrial-scale mono-cropping, are all jumping on the ‘climate smart’ bandwagon, claiming that they offer solutions to climate change.
Critics point out that the same so-called ‘green revolution’ industries that have been widely criticised for their significant contribution to climate change and their negative environmental and social impacts on farmers and food systems have simply rebranded themselves as ‘climate smart’ and continued as before.
Synthetic fertilisers, for example, contribute significantly to cl imate-changing greenhouse gases, while large-scale industrial livestock production has been shown to be a major contributor to climate change.
Meanwhile, industrialised agricultural techniques, including the use of genetically modified organisms, can increase the vulnerability of farmers to climate change.
Not only do large-scale industrial approaches harm the climate, they also put significant pressure on the world’s smallholder farmers, often exacerbating debt while eroding their livelihoods, land and ecosystems.
At the same time, however, some groups that promote small-scale, agro-ecological farming practices that really do benefit the climate and farmers are also keen to call their own work ‘climate smart.’
These groups may prioritise small-scale farmers, women, youth, traditional knowledge or participatory approaches.
Confusion arises when some politicians, policymakers, corporations, NGOs and farmers welcome, promote or collaborate on CSA activities, even though these groups may be talking about very different approaches.
There are, therefore, significant concerns that destructive agribusinesses are able to use climate rhetoric and the general confusion over the term CSA, to provide ‘green-wash’ cover to their activities, enabling them to expand into new markets such as Africa but undermining local economies, ecosystems, seed diversity and farmers in the process.
