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Climate change agreement must not ignore agriculture

crop-field-maize.JPGOver 60 of the world’s leading agricultural scientists have issued a statement warning that December’s negotiations on climate change in Copenhagen must not ignore agriculture and the need for crop adaptation to ensure the world’s future food supplies.

The statement says, “The negative impact of climate change on agriculture, and thus on the production of food, could well place at risk all other efforts to mitigate and adapt to new climate conditions.”

The scientists say that farmers will encounter problems they have never before encountered, including higher than average temperatures, and shorter growing seasons. There is no single characteristic that will ensure crops will retain, or increase their productivity in new climates. Efforts to adapt will be required crop by crop. But crop diversity, which holds the key to future adaptation, is being lost.

“We urge countries at the Copenhagen conference to give due attention to crop diversity conservation and use as an essential element of the commitments they will make for climate change adaptation,” the statement says.


Signatories to the statement include Peter Crane, a former director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in the UK; Rosamond Naylor, director of Stanford University’s programme on food security and the environment, in the US; and several winners of the World Food Prize, an award created in 1986 to honour achievements of individuals who have improved the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world.

The warning comes as world leaders meet in Rome, Italy at the UN’s summit on food security from 16-18 November. Leaders adopted a declaration at the summit which states, “Any recipe for confronting the challenges of climate change must allow for mitigation options and a firm commitment to the adaptation of agriculture, including through conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources for food and agriculture.”

The declaration also says that countries will promote research for food and agriculture, including research to adapt to and mitigate climate change, and will open up access to research results and technologies.

Image: Alamy

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