Agriculture is Now Officially on the COP27 Agenda

The first official Food and Agriculture Pavilion at a UNFCCC COP has been unveiled at Sharm El-Sheikh.

FREMONT, CA

A Conference of Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is now discussing food systems and agriculture (UNFCCC). At the first official Food and Agriculture Pavilion at COP27, there will be debates specifically devoted to food and agriculture.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, CGIAR, and The Rockefeller Foundation are hosting the Pavilion at the climate summit. Extreme weather occurrences pose a clear threat to food production, as evidenced by the severe drought conditions in Europe, the United States, and Africa, the heatwave that affected India's wheat harvest, and floods and droughts in Pakistan.

Organisations representing more than 350 million farmers and producers submitted a letter to international leaders. They cautioned that unless governments increase adaptation financing for small-scale farming and encourage a change to more diverse, low-input agriculture, there is a risk to the world's food security.

Climate change harms agriculture. But it also contributes to more than a third of the world's output of greenhouse gases. However, no climate COP has tackled food systems in detail, and most countries' climate policies do not include proposals for addressing food systems.

The Koronivia Joint Work on Agricultural (KJWA), founded in 2017 at COP23 in Bonn, Germany, is the only UNFCCC programme focused on agriculture and food security. Since then, the KJWA has been regarded as the official forum for COP food discussions. At COP26 in Glasgow, it did plan a few events, but its voice and visibility were muted as usual.

The transformation of agrifood systems will be placed at the forefront of the COP agenda for the first time in the Food and Agriculture Pavilion, according to a statement from the FAO. Adaptation for resilient agriculture in Africa, climate security for drylands, the vulnerability of food systems to the global food crisis, conflicts and trade shocks, and low-emission climate-resilient development methods are just a few topics that will be covered throughout the ensuing two weeks.

The majority of the emissions from the industry are attributed to industrial agriculture, and experts emphasise the urgent need to switch to agroecology. This entails cooperating with the environment and neighbourhood groups to enhance food security, sustainable livelihoods, biodiversity, and efforts to tame climate extremes and store carbon.