Agriculture is affected by climate change but also contributes to it. As a sector, agriculture must therefore both adapt to changes and offers options for mitigation, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions and storing carbon. This study explores the mitigation and adaptation potential of organic agriculture. Based on a comprehensive review of scientific literature, the authors conclude that organic agriculture may well serve as aquick win-win policy option to store carbon and reduce emissions.
Organic agriculture
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Publication dateObjectiveSectorsApproach
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Publication dateObjectiveSectors
Report providing an introductory overview of issues in light of the FAO's gloomy predictions regarding the global target to halve poverty by 2015. With case studies throughout the paper looks at the connection between hunger and poverty and the policies that are supposed to reduce both.
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SectorsObjective
Organic agriculture is a production system which avoids or largely excludes the use of synthetic fertilisers, pesticides and growth regulators. It can sequester carbon using crop rotations, crop residues, animal manure, legumes, green manure, and off-farm organic waste (Lampkin et al., 1999). It can also reduce carbon emissions by avoiding the use of fossil fuels used in the manufacture of the chemicals used to make synthetic materials.
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Technology
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) is seeking commercial partners interested in developing a new class of fungicides compliant with organic agriculture. Fungal pathogens pose one of the greatest economic threats to agriculture. Every year fungal infections – such as root rot smut and powdery mildew – destroy about 125 million tons of the top five food crops globally. One pest Sclerotinia sclerotiorum is responsible for a disease called white mold and causes $250 million in annual damages in the U.S. alone.