Why CSR?
Agriculture is both a contributor to climate change and an important part of the solution, as reducing agricultural GHG emissions (CO2, CH4, N2O) plays a significant role in mitigating climate change, while sequestering atmospheric CO2 into soils and biomass is among the cheapest options for ānegative emissionsā.
Climate Smart Agriculture is an often suggested framework to address climate change challenges in agriculture, because it offers an integrative whole-farming system approach to respond effectively to climate change, since it integrates the three dimensions of sustainable development – economic, social and environmental, by:Ā
- Sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and incomes
- Adapting and building resilience to climate change
- Reducing and/or removing greenhouse gas emissions, where possible
Research and innovation (R&I) are key drivers in accelerating the transition to Climate Smart Farming (CSF) systems, since R&I enables development and testing of Climate Smart solutions, overcoming barriers and uncovering new market opportunities.
While Climate Smart Agriculture has received ample attention, current R&I has primarily focussed on specific aspects such as emissions or productivity, and has hardly addressed the three core pillars – productivity, adaptation and mitigation in an integrated way. Moreover, there is lack of a comprehensive methodology for monitoring, testing and evaluating Climate Smart tools and services, also for use on āaverage farmsā i.e. farms that are representative for a region or country in terms of e.g. operational farm management, average yields, vocational training.
The European Green Deal offers an ambitious set of initiatives towards a climate neutral European economy in 2050. The āFit for 55ā package was adopted to respond to the requirements in the EU Climate Law, aiming to meet the target of reducing GHG emissions by at least 55% by 2030 compared to 1990, and achieve climate neutrality by 2050.