Climate-Smart Agriculture: Why is it needed in developing countries?

Perspectives in International Development Seminar Series

In the next three decades, increasing the productivity and incomes from smallholder crop, livestock, fishery, and forestry production systems will be key to achieving global food security. Majority of the world’s poor are dependent on agriculture, and experience has shown that growth in agriculture is often the most effective and equitable strategy for reducing poverty and increasing food security. Climate change exacerbates the challenges of achieving the needed growth and improvements in agricultural systems and its effects are already being felt. Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) is an approach to dealing with these interlinked challenges in a holistic and effective manner. CSA helps guide actions to transform and reorient agricultural systems to support development and food security effectively and sustainably under a changing climate. It is not a new production system – it is a means of identifying which production systems and enabling institutions are best suited to respond to the challenges of climate change for specific locations, to maintain and enhance the capacity of agriculture to support food security in a sustainable way.

About the presenter

John Recha is a Climate Smart Agriculture scientist. He is involved in several programs that seek to help communities in sub-Saharan Africa deal with the climate change related challenges that affect agriculture, food and nutrition security. John earned his Ph.D. degree in Soil and Crop Sciences at Cornell University, his MS from Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania and his B.Sc. from the University of Nairobi in Kenya. in 2008, Recha was a Norman E. Borlaug Leadership Enhancement in Agriculture Program Fellow.

About the seminar series

The "Perspectives in International Development Seminar Series" is co-sponsored by the Department of Global Development, the Department of Natural Resources,  the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, and the School of Integrative Plant Science.