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Agriculture is one of the sectors most vulnerable to climate change, facing pressures from water scarcity, shifting precipitation patterns, heat stress, and extreme weather events like droughts and floods. These factors disrupt farming cycles and increase the risk of diseases and pests. In the EU, agriculture is particularly susceptible, and its resilience is critical for mitigating potential climate impacts. Sustainable agriculture must incorporate the ability to adapt to changing climatic conditions.
Despite the challenges, agriculture plays a vital role in climate change mitigation. Farmland, through crops, hedgerows, and trees, sequesters carbon, while well-managed soils and grasslands provide long-term carbon storage. The EU agricultural sector has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 24% between 1990 and 2021, contributing around 11% of total emissions, primarily from methane and nitrous oxide associated with livestock and fertilization practices. Protecting soil is essential, as it supplies crucial nutrients and support for plant growth.
The Agenda 2030 and the Paris Agreement emphasize the need for transformational shifts toward climate-resilient development, by underscoring the importance of strengthen adaptive capacities for vulnerable populations facing climate-related hazards and other shocks, like the COVID-19 pandemic.
The EU is committed to the Paris Agreement, setting ambitious targets for a 40% reduction in emissions by 2030 across all economic sectors, which necessitates significant efforts in agricultural and forestry practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and implement adaptation strategies.
In response, the European Green Deal's Farm to Fork strategy provides a framework for transitioning to a sustainable food system, enabling farmers to meet food demands while protecting the climate. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for 2023-2027 aims to facilitate the transition towards sustainable agriculture by supporting climate change mitigation and adaptation, enhancing carbon sequestration, promoting sustainable energy, and efficiently managing natural resources. It focuses on reducing chemical dependency and maintaining biodiversity through climate-smart innovations. Aligned with the European Green Deal and Farm to Fork strategy, the CAP has three key environmental goals: tackling climate change, protecting natural resources, and enhancing biodiversity. It promotes these objectives by encouraging organic farming and responsible management of pesticides and fertilizers, enabling farmers to produce safe and healthy food while safeguarding natural resources and contributing to climate change mitigation. To achieve its environmental goals sustainably for farmers and rural communities, the CAP includes several measures:
All of this requires comprehensive cooperation among policymakers, local communities, and global stakeholders, fostering transdisciplinary scientific collaboration that encompasses ecological, social, economic, and ethical dimensions.
To effectively tackle climate change, countries need proactive and flexible approaches that integrate risk management strategies. Embracing systemic approaches is essential for climate change mitigation and environmental care, as these frameworks recognize the interconnectedness of ecological, social, and economic systems. They promote a holistic understanding of climate challenges, enabling solutions that address root causes rather than just symptoms.
Central to these approaches is the concept of resilience, which emphasizes the need for adaptive capacity within socialecological systems to enhance environmental health and community well-being. Systemic strategies foster collaboration across sectors, encouraging innovation and collective action, with successful examples including ecosystem-based management and circular economy models.
Besides, policy implementation must tackle various barriers that hinder the adoption of new technologies and the transformation of production systems. These barriers encompass bio-physical constraints, cognitive and behavioural challenges, and social and institutional factors.
Essential for effectively addressing climate change mitigation and enhancing environmental care is the use of shared datasets obtained through advanced land monitoring technologies, such as satellites. This includes establishing common indicators and robust monitoring systems to improve reporting and verification of emissions and removals, enable informed decision-making, and foster coordinated efforts across sectors to address climate challenges and promote sustainable practices.
Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) play a crucial role in modernizing the agricultural sector while strengthening environmental care and climate change mitigation through collaborative research and innovation, advisory, innovation support services, knowledge sharing and digitalization.
In general, AKIS-related interventions help acquire and develop the awareness and capacities needed to engage in more sustainable practices and consumption. This empowers farmers, advisors, and other AKIS actors to better navigate transformative paths toward a more sustainable and resilient agricultural sector. Additionally, it promotes sustainableoriented research and innovation that addresses the actual barriers and challenges impeding these transformative pathways.
In light of the AKIS systemic approach, it is crucial to interconnect the various types of AKIS-related interventions with those that more directly address environmental care, including biodiversity preservation and restoration, as well as climate change mitigation.
Among the others some effective interventions might be the followings (list not exhaustive):
Cooperation for innovation
Training, discussion groups, peer-to-peer reviews, cross-visits and other forms of knowledge sharing
Advisory and innovation support services:
Information access and sharing:
The practices presented in this "Compendium" showcase some and diverse interesting and replicable approaches that effectively leverage the potential of AKIS interventions to contribute enhancing climate change actions and environmental care in different ways.
These practices highlight the variety of solutions that can be implemented to support a smoother ecological transition in Member States through AKIS-related interventions, ranging from on-the-spot training on relevant topics (e.g. Polland case) to more complex and structured training and advisory programs (e.g. Ireland case). Overall, the importance of training, information, and advisory services emerges as crucial for enhancing local capacities to address climate change mitigation and sustainable agriculture. Additionally, they emphasize the need for well-structured training and advisory programs that align transitions toward more sustainable farming practices with business and territorial development.
These programs are tailored to the specific needs of particular rural areas and are complemented by incentives and benefits for participants (e.g., free advisory services, academic credits) to address potential barriers while recognizing the commitment of farmers and advisors.
Ultimately, it worths noting the multiple role that the national CAP networks can play to boost the use of most advanced information and advisory tools in member states: (i) knowledge broker, by matching the information on Copernicus EUlevel platform with to the need for knowledge and tools of national/subnational level; (ii) training designer of the course on how to use Copernicus platform; (iii) intermediary of local communities and institutions to jointly organize tailored
training courses.
Questions for opening the discussion and reflect on how to better direct AKIS interventions towards a climate change mitigation are:
Delivery:
SWOT & Needs Assessment:
Training and Capacity Building
Monitoring and Evaluation
Long-Term Vision:
