Despite a sense that the international climate change negotiations, convened in Bonn, Germany this week, are grinding forward at a painfully slow pace, there is a momentum to the process that makes adding new ideas very difficult. It took several years of behind the scenes technical work and at least two years of carefully planned campaigning to get the deforestation issue substantively on the table. While we know that agriculture can make a vital contribution to addressing climate change, it lags behind the forest discussion and effectively including it in the Copenhagen deal at this late date will be no easy thing.
Photo: Rutger BlomThe Food and Agriculture Organization summed up the complex agricultural and climate change interplay during a presentation at the climate negotiations last week. While trying to solve climate change, global population is still growing, though it will hopefully peak in the middle of the century at about 9 billion. As we strive to meet the Millennium Development Goals, affluence will also increase. The combination of population growth and the increase in wealth will require food production to increase 70%, with even larger increases for meat ... Read more
