Growing Returns

Selected tag(s): agriculture

Revisiting a centuries-old approach to farming that embraces water scarcity.

As discussions at COP28 wrestle with climate impacts on global food and water security, we hear from a Hopi farmer on his thriving practice of dry farming and his hopes for shared learning in Dubai.

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The arid climate of the Hopi reservation in northeastern Arizona receives a mere 8.5 inches of annual rainfall. For perspective, the yearly United States average is 30 inches. Despite this severe aridity, for over 3,000 years, the Hopi people have stewarded an extraordinary agricultural tradition centered on dry farming.

Dr. Michael Kotutwa Johnson is an Indigenous Resiliency Specialist at the University of Arizona and a leading practitioner of Hopi dry farming — a form of agriculture that eschews irrigation in regions with limited water moisture. As a 250th-generation Hopi dry farmer, his ongoing traditional practices are a  testament to the power of cultural values and the potential of climate-adaptive farming. These ongoing Hopi farming practices defy modern notions of crop needs and vulnerability in areas with limited irrigation and water supply.

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Water is a high-level priority at COP 28, we need to look to ground-level users for solutions

Water has finally reached the highest levels of global climate negotiations. The path to a sustainable freshwater future, however, lies with ground-level users. At COP 28, EDF is elevating their voices, their needs and the approaches they find most useful.

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While greenhouse gases drive climate change, many of its impacts are inherently liquid. Whether through drought, flood, sea-level rise, or contamination, water increasingly forms the turbulent core of the climate crisis.

Over the past year, this basic reality was finally acknowledged at the global planning table.  Thanks to a strong push from its Egyptian hosts, last year’s edition of the main UN climate conference, COP 27, made water a central theme. The cover decision — the summation of the conference’s key agreements — featured water and food for the first time. The decision acknowledged the central role of water in countering climate impacts and called for water-related targets in national climate planning.

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Trends to scale collective impact at the 2023 Sustainable Agriculture Summit and beyond

hand in soil showcasing cover crop growth.

Establishing a cover crop during the cool season.

In early December, the EDF climate-smart agriculture team will join hundreds of farmers, food and agriculture companies, university experts and other conservation organizations at the 2023 Sustainable Agriculture Summit, “Scaling Collective Impact: Collaborating to Accelerate Agricultural Sustainability.” This conference is one of the largest annual gatherings of people working to improve sustainability in U.S. agriculture, and the discussions held in the conference sessions and hallways reflect the major trends, opportunities and challenges facing those who share this goal.

Here are some expected “hot topic” discussions at the conference and throughout the agricultural sustainability movement as we approach 2024.

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Learning from shared scarcity: the Colorado River, the Yellow River and the world

This blog is co-authored by Yiwei Gan.

One of the largest rivers in the world struggles to reach the ocean. Spread across a huge slice of a continent, its basin supports millions. Yet the weight of its work to irrigate and power booming farms and cities in an increasingly arid zone is straining the river to a breaking point. For many working in the western water space, this describes the Colorado. A river whose over-work and over-allocation, despite its fundamental role in sustaining life for half a continent, seems in many ways singular.  

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The growing threat of heat for farmworkers

Farmworkers in field picking yellow squash outside in the heat.

Dangerous health effects and heat-related illnesses result when the body is unable to maintain a safe core temperature through measures like sweating. Symptoms range from mild effects to severe illness and even death.

The summer of 2023 has been one of record-breaking heat with devastating consequences for people, crops and livestock. As the climate continues to warm, heat wave intensity, frequency and duration will increase across the globe.

U.S. farmworkers — invaluable, often unrecognized contributors to food production and the trillion-dollar agricultural economy — are at exceptionally high risk for heat-related health consequences. A report from Environmental Defense Fund and La Isla Network finds that the average U.S. agricultural worker is currently exposed to an estimated 21 unsafe working days due to heat each May-September. Crop workers are also 20 times more likely to die from heat-stress-related illness than civilian workers in the U.S.   Read More »

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The farm bill is a powerful opportunity for agricultural climate solutions

U.S. farmers, ranchers and foresters will need additional tools and resources to protect their land, keep growing food on a changing planet and contribute to national efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That’s where the farm bill comes in.

The farm bill is a critical piece of legislation that comes up every five years. It authorizes programs that provide producers with a safety net in tough times and supports them in adopting climate-friendly production practices.

As Congress begins writing the next farm bill, new recommendations from the Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance provide some of the most significant alignment on climate and agriculture policy priorities to date. Read More »

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Takeaways from the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture

By Karly Kelso

Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) in Berlin, January 20, 2023 (BMEL/Photothek)

Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) in Berlin, January 20, 2023 (BMEL/Photothek)

Food systems transformation is increasingly getting traction globally, making the case that we can’t meet our Paris climate agreements without food at and on the table. That was certainly true at the recently held Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) in Berlin, known as the largest informal gathering of Agriculture Ministers. 

This year’s theme, “Food Systems Transformation: A Worldwide Response to Multiple Crises,” focused on conversations about how global food security may be achieved in the face of multiple crises, including Russia’s war against Ukraine. Despite the heavy topic, a sense of energy and ambition among the attendees was evident as this event marked the first GFFA held in person since 2020, when the COVID pandemic forced global lockdowns.  

The conference has historically focused on agriculture production policies, but this year was different. Conversations took a more holistic view of food systems, and our EDF team was among the voices calling for attention towards freshwater management and blue foods. Both are central to food systems but are often left out of these dialogues despite their significant contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals and global food and nutrition security. At GFFA, our team highlighted how EDF is advancing international recognition of these two critical aspects of food systems.  

Our team demonstrated the innovative tool, OpenET, that provides access to satellite data on water consumption on agricultural lands across 17 states in the American west. This tool supports climate-friendly food systems by enabling producers to better manage the dwindling water supplies. We highlighted the Aquatic Blue Food Coalition at the Innovation Forum and joined the expert panel: Solving the Great Food Puzzle: 20 levers to scale national level action, where we spoke about how we are catalyzing the inclusion of blue foods into national level actions for food transformation.   

While we have a long way to go, this meeting signals the growing efforts to move towards adopting a food systems approach to global food and nutrition insecurity. The final communique from the Ministers’ meeting reflects this commitment and sets the following ambitious goals: 

  • The right to adequate food must be realized. It is high time to recognize it on the 2030 agenda. 
  • In particular, the young generation, women and smallholders must be supported. 
  • Multilateralism must be promoted in the face of multiple crises: hunger, energy and climate crisis, and extinction of species. 
  • The global community must stand united. 
  • Transformation towards resilient and sustainable food systems must be supported and sped up.

As we close out the first food conference of 2023, I’m hopeful as these global dialogues are increasingly focused on the importance of holistic approaches to food and nutrition that promote sustainable, inclusive, efficient, and resilient food systems transformation.  On the Climate Resilient Food Systems team at EDF, we will be looking to carry these themes forward throughout 2023, including at the UN Water Conference, 2023 Stocktaking Moment, UNFCCC COP28, and more.  But most importantly, we will look forward to working with and supporting partners and communities on the ground who are transforming food systems to create a vital earth for everyone.   

Karly Kelso is director of Climate Resilient Food Systems at EDF.

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Danone commits to cut dairy methane emissions in partnership with farmers and EDF

Even if we completely eliminated fossil fuel emissions today, global food system emissions would cause us to exceed our 1.5 degree warming targets, unless they are slowed down. We cannot choose between food security and environmental sustainability – they are one and the same. Urgent action is needed to shift food and agriculture from a driver of climate change and biodiversity loss to a solution, with positive outcomes for producers, companies and consumers.

The good news? The global dairy company Danone is taking a big step forward by pledging to work with its farmer suppliers to reduce methane emissions from its fresh milk supply chain by 30% by 2030.

This announcement builds on past successes, with a plan to accelerate action in the years to come. It aims to achieve significant methane cuts while feeding a growing population and protecting the livelihoods of farmers around the world. And it creates a new level of ambition on methane emissions that I hope others in the food and agriculture industry will follow.

Even a large, global company can’t make this happen by itself. Danone is launching a strategic partnership with Environmental Defense Fund to support its methane reduction ambitions. Danone and EDF will work together in such areas as improved science, data and reporting standards, innovative financing models to help farmers of all sizes, and catalyzing industry and policy leadership through advocacy.

This is the first methane-specific climate pledge from a food or agriculture company. Danone’s size as a major global dairy company provides a significant opportunity for impact.

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Major banks are setting climate targets. What the agricultural finance sector needs to know.

Many major banks have set targets to reduce financed greenhouse gas emissions in their loan portfolios to zero by 2050 (also known as net zero targets). They join a growing movement of companies throughout the agricultural supply chain to set ambitious targets to reach net zero by 2050 to prevent the most severe impacts from climate change.

The Banking for Impact on Climate in Agriculture (B4ICA) initiative recently published “An introductory guide for net zero target setting for farm-based agricultural emissions” that shares best practices for banks to set net zero GHG emissions targets for their agricultural loan portfolios. The guidance helps banks setting agricultural sector emissions reduction targets as part of their commitments to the Net Zero Banking Alliance ­— an alliance of 122 banks representing 40% of global bank assets that have committed to aligning their assets with net zero GHG emissions by 2050 or sooner. Read More »

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Five ways U.S. agriculture can adapt to climate change

Farmers have a long history of steadily increasing crop yields through technological innovation and improvements in management practices. However, as climate change makes weather more extreme and variable than ever before, productivity progress will likely stall by 2030 — even if the U.S. maintains past rates of R&D investment and innovation. Adaptation efforts must begin now to protect food supplies and farmer livelihoods.

Adaptation options can be deployed at various scales to combat the unknown challenges ahead.

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