Food and nutritional security in the context of climate change:

eco-efficiency or agroecology?

Jean-François Soussana, Scientific Director Environment,

INRA, Paris, France

Session 4. Which model(s) for agriculture?

Two Goals of Our Time

1. Achieving Food and Nutritional Security

– 800 million chronically undernourished, more with micronutrients deficits,

– Far reaching implications of obesity on chronical diseases,

– Food production to increase 50-70% by 2050,

– Adaptation to climate change is critical

2. Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change

- The ’ 2°C railguard ’ requires major emission cuts,

- Agriculture and land use contribute to 24% of GHG emissions...

...and need to be part of the solution

Which model(s) for agriculture?

A more efficient global food system (1961-2011)

(Soussana, Ben Ari et al., in prep.)

• The conversion efficiency into plant and animal food of total raw (arable and grassland) proteins has increasedfrom 12 to 19%,

• The fraction of feed which is edible by humans has increased from 24 to 42% (increased reliance on grains of livestock systems)

• Since the 1990’s, direct GHG emissions per unit foodhave declined (i.e. lower carbon intensity ofagricultural production) at a slow pace (0.75% per year)

Note that global grassland and arable soil carbon stock changes since 1961 are not known

Prot

ein

use

effic

ienc

y

0.12

0.13

0.14

0.15

0.16

0.17

0.18

0.19

0.20

Fraction human edible livestock feed

Frac

tion

hum

an e

dibl

e liv

esto

ck fe

ed

0.22

0.24

0.26

0.28

0.30

0.32

0.34

0.36

0.38

0.40

0.42

0.44

Protein conversion efficiency

Years

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020Car

bon

inte

nsity

(ton

CO

2 equ

ival

ents

ton-1

pro

tein

)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

gCH4gN2Og Prechaing. directgLUC g.

Carbon intensity components

Environmental risks associated to agriculture and food systems

Eco-efficiency (sustainable intensification): the standard paradigm

Sustainable intensification (since 1980’s)

Eco-efficiency

Substitution

Reduced emissions per unit product

Specialisation(since 1960’s)

Increased inputs

Simplified systems

Reduced commodity costsincreased volumes

Nevertheless, resilience of specialized systems is at risk !Increased sensitivity to pests and diseases, and to climatic hazards,

Reduced biodiversity and ecosystem services(apart from production)

Increased GHG emissions per unit land (not necessarily per unit product)

Eco-efficiency (land sparing) paradigm

• Eco-efficiency: the maximization of plant and animal products per unit of inputs or natural resources (e.g. Wilkins, 2008). It would allow:

— Environmentally sustainable intensification of agricultural production,— Land sparing for nature conservation,— Large production volumes suitable for industries and exports

• In the context of modernized and simplified systems, eco-efficiencycan be further developed through:

— Genome based plant and animal breeding, advanced phenotyping,— Precision agriculture and livestock farming,— ‘Big data’ combining soil, weather, micro-climate, remote sensing, markets,

etc… with decision support models.

• Socio-economics: capital intensive systems, with low on-farm labor.

Agroecology (and organic farming): an alternative paradigm

Facilitation, niche complementarity, Root symbioses..

RecouplingC-N-P cycles (eg. crop-livestock-integration)

Reducedemissionsper unit landSystem

diversification

Heterogeneity inspace & time Balanced

ecosystemservices

Reduced external inputsIncreased resilience to pest & diseases, and to climatic hazards?

Increased on-farm laborIncreased biodiversity and ecosystem services

Reduced GHG emissions per unit land (not necessarily per unit product)

Functionaldiversity

Ecologicalinfrastructures

Agro-ecology: ecologically grounded production systems fitted to local conditions (e.g. Gliessman et al., 2006)

Agroecology would: Reduce dependency to external inputs and increase resilience to climatic and

sanitary hazards,

Share land between production and other ecosystem services, diversify food products and diets,

Increase or preserve labor in farms (smallholders) and in rural areas.

Agroecology could develop through participatory research supported by advanced knowledge of ecological processes in agriculture and by dedicated technologies (e.g. bio-control, soil biota indicators, etc..) at field and lanscape scales

However, it requires capacity building, dedicated tools and extra-monitoring time, reorganization of up- and downstream industries.

Agroecology (land sharing) paradigm

Climate change: a game changer for agricultural systems?

• Increasing risks from climatic variability and associated price volatility,

• Increasing demands for drastic GHG mitigation in agricultural and food systems,

• Increased pressures on soils, water resources and biodiversity,

• Changes in plant product composition that could affect nutritional security

Observed climate change impacts on crop yields(% per decade)

IPCC, AR5, WGII SPM, 2014

Summer 2003 Europe (no equivalent since 1500)

Summer 2010 Russia(no equivalent since 1500)

Extreme climatic events since 2000:heat and drought

Summer 2012 USA

• Compare past & future distributions from ensembles of global crops models (AgMIP/ISI-MIP)– Extreme (-) percentiles, variance & skewness of distributions

generally getting worse– Global 1-in-100 year historical event occurs almost 1-in-30 years

within only several decades

Non-stationary risk in agriculture(J. Elliott, Chicago University)

12Reproduced from Extreme weather and resilience of the global food system Prepared for the UK-US Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience

A view from the insuranceindustry: Lloyd’s emergingrisk report - 2015

Experts have developed a worstcase scenario of a large ENSO event, combining:

- Direct weather impacts onkey grain producing regions,

- Indirect impacts through crop pathogens(stem rust of wheat),

- Consequences for markets and stocks

Hurricane impacts in Central America on monocultures vs. agroecological terraces

After Hurricane Mitch in Central America, Honduran farms under monoculture exhibited higher levels of damage in the form of mudslides (left photo) than neighboring biodiverse farms featuring agroforestry systems, contour farming, cover crops, etc. (right photo)

(after Nicholls, in press, FAO)

Is agroecology providing increased resilienceto climatic hazards?

Agroecology comes with systems diversification which reduces the impacts of climatic hazards,

Agroecology can directly protect crops and animals against high temperatures (e.g. agroforestry via shade) and soils from heavyprecicipitation (e.g. continuous soil cover)

In ecology, the biodiversity insurance hypothesis states that more biodiverse systems are more resilient to hazards (somedemonstrations in literature)

Nevertheless, inputs often buffer variability: Mineral fertilizers replace soil mineralization at e.g. low soil

temperature, Irrigation buffers climatic variability, etc… Pests and diseases can be directly controled by

pesticides/antibiotics

Transition in adaptation strategies: layering risk

(Cattaneo, OECD, 2011 & Vermeulen et al., 2014, PNAS)

Systemic IncrementalTransformative

Transitions in types of adaptationEcoefficiency?Agoecology?

What is the potential of the mitigation options for reducing GHG emissions in the AFOLU sector?

• Global economic mitigation potentials in agriculture in 2050 are estimated to be 0.5─10.6 GtCO2eq/yr. (current global emissions reach 49 GtCO2eq/yr)

• Reducing food losses & wastes: GHG emission savings of 0.6─6.0 GtCO2eq/yr.• Changes in diet: GHG emission savings of 0.7─7.3 GtCO2eq/yr.• Forestry mitigation options are estimated to contribute 0.2─13.8 GtCO2/yr.

IPCC, AR5, WGIII SPM, 2014

SSP1 is the sustainable world with strong development goals that include reducing fossil fuel dependency and rapid technological changes directed towards environmentally friendly processes including yield-enhancing technologies.

SSP2 is the continuation of current trends with some effort to reach development goals and reduction in resource and energy intensity. On the demand side, investments in education in not sufficient to slow rapid population growth. In SSP2 there is only an intermediate success in addressing vulnerability to climate change.

SSP3 is a fragmented world characterized by strongly growing population and important regional differences in wealth with pockets of wealth and regions of high poverty. Unmitigated emissions are high, low adaptative capacity and large number of people vulnerable to climate change. Impact on ecosystems are severe.

Shared socio-economic pathways 1-3

2050, Land use change emissions (CO2 eq.)

Tons

CO

2 equ

ival

ents

0

1e+9

2e+9

3e+9

No climate changeRCP 8.5

SSP1 SSP2 SSP3

2050, Chronic undernourishment

Chr

onic

ally

und

erno

uris

hed

num

ber

0.0

2.0e+8

4.0e+8

6.0e+8

8.0e+8

1.0e+9

1.2e+9

1.4e+9

No climate changeRCP 8.5

SSP1 SSP2 SSP3

Food security and land use change projections for 2050

(IIASA, GLOBIOM model)

Global food system emissionsmay prevent climate stabilization

Agriculture and LUC: 2050, % total GHG emissions%

of t

otal

GH

G e

mis

sion

s

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

RCP2.5RCP 8.5

SocioEconomic PathwaysSSP1 SSP2 SSP3

(IIASA, GLOBIOM model)

Coût (en euros par tonne de CO2e évité) et potentiel d'atténuation annuel en 2030 à l’échelle du territoire métropolitain (en Mt de CO2e évité) des actions instruites.

*** * * ***

** *

* Agroecology option

Of total mitigation potential:• Ecoefficiency: 60% • Agroecology: 59%• Options in common: 19%

22

Food Security

UNCCD

Soil Carbon

Soil organic matter: multiple benefits

Restoring degraded soils provides an agroecological ‘win-win’ option

Terraprima project (www.terraprima.pt)Portuguese carbon fund

Sown biodiverse leys fertilized with P

50,000 ha were sown (1,000 farmers)

Estimated carbon sequestration :1 million tons since 2009

Climate smart agriculture:bridging agroecology and ecoefficiency?

• Climate smart agriculture (CSA) has been defined as agriculture that sustainably increases productivity and resilience(adaptation), reduces greenhouse gases (mitigation), and enhances food security and development. FAO (2010) Technical input for the Hague Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change.

• A sustainable intensification of agriculture, that would allow closure of yield gaps and increasing biological efficiencies can enhance food security, ecosystem services and contribute to mitigating climate change

• During the third science conference on CSA, it was stated that the concept also applies to the challenges of sustainable food systems and landscapes.

• However, the metrics of CSA are still unclear.

Conclusions

Climate change has large implications for agriculture and food systems which question both the eco-efficiency (standard) and the agroecology (alternative) models,

Both of these models can offer solutions that could ultimately contribute to climate smart food systems and landscapes,

Rapid changes will be required to create transitions in both agricultural (e.g. soil carbon sequestration) and food (e.g. diet transitions) systems,

Business-as-usual is not an option as it leads to risks of food system shocks with increasingly apparent geopolitical implications.

Thank you for your attention!

Acknowledgements:

- Tamara Ben Ari, Inra- Petr Havlik, IIASA- Pierre Gerber, FAO- Joshua Elliot, Chicago University