More than 15 years after scientists from the ASB Partnership released the first guidelines for measuring tree, vegetation and soil carbon stocks, the World Agroforestry Centre has published an updated manual.

Professor Kurniatun Hairiah, on behalf of the co-authors, offered first copies in Jakarta, Indonesia at a project meeting to representatives of the Ministry of Forestry, universities, NGO’s and the national climate change advisory board. A version of the manual in Bahasa Indonesia is also available, as is a book specifically dealing with measurements in peatlands (English version still in preparation).

Carbon stocks of forests, agroforestry systems and other land uses have become of interest to many stakeholders in the global debate on greenhouse gas emissions and efforts to reduce these emissions.

This new manual evolved from efforts in the early 1990s when the ASB Partnership started to collect consistent data across the humid tropics. The first part discusses reasons for measuring carbon stocks across land use systems, at multiple temporal and spatial scales. Part 2 provides a 7-step rapid carbon appraisal process, combining analysis of remote sensing imagery and a nested-design for sampling trees, understorey, litter and other necromass, roots and soil organic matter. Allometric relationships between tree diameter and total biomass are discussed in relation to wood density. A case study also details steps taken in the Kali Konto watershed in East Java, Indonesia.

The manual is consistent with the Good Practice Guideline (GPG) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that is to be used for national accounting of carbon stocks and greenhouse gas emissions.

The manual is available free to download:

Hairiah K, Dewi S, Agus F, Velarde S, Ekadinata A, Rahayu S and van Noordwijk M, 2011. Measuring Carbon Stocks Across Land Use Systems: A Manual. Bogor, Indonesia. World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), SEA Regional Office, 154 pages.

Last month, an important World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) study was published in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability. The study showed that 400,000 farmers in Africa are using fertilizer trees to improve food security. Lead author and Senior Scientist Oluyede Ajayi was recently featured on a Voice Of America (VOA) radio report. The report can be accessed online.

Speaking about fertilizer trees, Oluyede said “These are trees that can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere and convert them into nitrates for fertilizer, for organic fertilizer, for the soil”. He comments that it is encouraging that more farmers are choosing to plant and use the organic fertilizers.

“The importance of capacity building was shown by farmers who designed and managed part of the testing in the field, and spread the word of their successes.” writes VOA reporter Jerilyn Watson.

Listen to the VOA report here.

Read more on the ICRAF study here.

Climate-smart agriculture must target the short-term needs of the smallholder farmer to be effective in combating climate change.

Encouraging climate-smart agriculture can lead to climate change adaptation practices in a partnership where the farmer’s needs are addressed.

“Climate-smart agriculture has the potential to increase sustainable productivity, increase the resilience of farming systems to climate impacts and mitigate climate change through greenhouse gas emission reductions and carbon sequestration,” says Henry Neufeldt the lead expert on climate change at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF).

Agroforestry – the growing of trees on farms – is one such climate-smart agricultural practice, and it has tremendous potential for both climate change adaptation and mitigation as well as providing a source of fuel, food, medicine and supplementing the diets of smallholder farmers.

Tree-based farming systems need to be encouraged as part of a low carbon emissions development pathway and adaptation strategy. For example, in tropical forest margins, agroforestry has been used in several protected area landscape buffer zones and within conservation areas as one way of alleviating pressure on forests for timber, thereby reducing deforestation and the resultant loss of carbon sinks.

Drawing lessons from the Philippines, a newly released policy brief from the ASB Partnership shows that programmes to support such initiatives are more likely to succeed in areas that are already deforested or where remaining forests are effectively protected, and where farmers have secure land tenure.

However, agricultural methods that focus on climate change solely will not be as successful as methods that focus on improving farmer livelihoods. Food security is the central focus for many smallholder farmers. In her work, Tannis Thorlakson, a scientist at the World Agroforestry Centre discovered that smallholder farmers in western Kenya are aware that their climate-coping strategies are not sustainable because they are forced to rely on actions that have negative long-term repercussions. These include eating seeds reserved for planting, selling assets (livestock, tree poles, etc.) at below market value, or building up debt in order to survive. These are only short-term solutions to drought and poverty.

By 2050 approximately 70 percent more food will have to be produced to feed growing populations, particularly in developing countries. As climate change causes temperatures to rise and precipitation patterns to change, more weather extremes will potentially reduce global food production.

In Africa, where 80 percent of smallholder farmers own less than two hectares of land, there will be 1.2 billion more people to feed. Farmers will have to adapt to these changing conditions in order to feed this growing population.

“Our research shows that when farmers change their farming practices their returns are not immediate and in some cases there is a drop in income. For climate-smart agriculture to work there has to be incentive for farmers to change and maintain new production systems,” says Neufeldt, speaking at the ongoing COP17 Climate Change Talks in Durban, South Africa.

“Climate-smart agriculture won’t be effective unless it specifically targets food security and livelihoods. Farmers must have sufficient incentives to change the way they manage their production systems,” says Neufeldt.

Sayon Kourouma, is a farmer from Guinea, West Africa, who has benefitted from an ICRAF partnership project for peanut tree farmers, that seeks to cater to household needs while improving the way in which local forests are managed.

“I am now earning four times as much as I made in the past,” says, Sayon. “If my children are sick, I don’t have to ask my husband for money, I can pay for medicines myself.”

Other signs of her new-found prosperity include a cow and her mobile phone which she uses to transact business. To cater to her basic necessities, Sayon no longer relies on solutions that bring about deforestation. To her, climate-smart agriculture has helped her adapt to climate change while improving her living standards.

Small or micro-scale farming is the primary source of livelihood for over two-thirds of Africans. With this great number of farmers, climate change adaptation can be enhanced once the farmers have the right incentives to participate in climate-smart agriculture. Farmers in the Thorlakon study believe the most effective way to adapt to climate-related shocks is through improving their general standard of living.

In discussions about how to help smallholder farmers adapt to climate change, it will be paramount to first focus on their short-term needs and find mutually beneficial methods that meet these needs and support the push towards climate change adaptation.
 

Land degradation is an environmental and developmental problem with ramifications for food security. World-leading soil analysis by the World Agroforestry Centre is helping to overcome the lack of existing information systems addressing land degradation.

“Evidence-based knowledge of soil health helps to determine where and how land degradation occurs,” says Keith Shepherd, Head of the Centre’s Land Health Research Program. “Records of soil analysis show us that the availability of phosphorus in African soils is low, a major concern when few smallholder farmers on the continent can afford mineral fertilizers”

“While land degradation is clearly known to be a major environmental and developmental problem, there is little concrete evidence and existing information systems to address it.”

Shepherd and his team are using tools such as infrared spectroscopy to achieve cost effectiveness and faster results for soil analysis. While the technology is available off the shelf, most of the techniques and methods have been developed in-house by Centre scientists and technicians. The data generated also serves as the premier data for Africa Soil Information Services (AfSIS).

The primary machine the team uses is the mid-infrared (MIR) Fourier spectrometer because it can handle 1000 samples a day as opposed to 400 which was all that could be achieved with older technology. The strength of MIR data has been boosted by regional infrared labs in Cote D’Ivoire, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, and Tanzania set up by the team to speed up data acquisition. In the near future, Shepherd’s team will be able to submit spectra over the internet to the Centre’s prediction engine and receive estimated values of various soil properties in return. This will ultimately mean there will be reliable data across Africa concerning key land health indicators such as soil organic carbon.

Other land health indicators are a soil’s ability to resist erosion. A laser diffraction particle analyser is used by the team to simulate the behaviour of soils during water and wind erosion, and to diagnose susceptibility to erosion and other soil physical problems.

Lab Technician, Emily Barasa comments, “Data collected ultimately leads to knowledge about soil hydrology, and unlike the previous tedious and error-prone ways, sample preparation is almost not required since the soil can be used just as it is”. This is important information because the extent to which erosion affects soils depends mostly on soil hydrology and soil mineralogy.

Soil mineralogy in turn has a bearing on many other soil functions such as nutrient content and its ability to retain organic matter. The team sees that soil mineralogy can be used as a key component of a model that can predict many other soil qualities and therefore give a quick overall indication of soil health. Faster data means quicker responses can be undertaken to combat land health issues.

Looking to the future, the team is aiming for full automation of their data management process. As data analyst Andrew Sillar says, “The data captured from different machines come in different formats and these have to be harmonized.” Once done, the combination of data allows everything to be known about a soil sample quickly and in a user-friendly format. A consistent data format across Africa will be used to inform policy and action towards preventing and reversing land degradation in Africa and improving farmer livelihoods.

Valuable lessons on how to explain the science behind climate change and carbon markets to farmers is the subject of a World Agroforestry Centre policy brief that will be presented during UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa

To the farmer, being informed you can earn money for something you can’t see, but which exists in the trees you have or are being encouraged to plant on your land, might seem like a far-fetched story.

To the scientist, communicating information about climate change or the concept of carbon sequestration to farmers is a challenge when these are issues which scientists deal with every day.

Scientists and farmers might operate in two very different worlds, especially in developing countries, but with more and more opportunities emerging for farmers to benefit from carbon payments by improving their agricultural practices or planting trees, these worlds are converging.

Moushumi Chaudhury, Social Scientist with the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) explains how it is critical that people working on carbon finance projects effectively communicate with farmers.

“Farmers need sufficient information so they can make informed choices about whether or not they want to participate in a carbon finance project,” explains Chaudhury. “They also need to be made aware of how the amount of carbon being stored on their land will be measured, monitored and verified.”

Chaudhury and her colleagues found very little information existed that would help someone working in the field with such communication challenges. “When we didn’t find any resources on how to communicate concepts such as carbon finance, we realized we’d have to do it ourselves.”

The CCAFS program brought together 12 people from Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, many of whom work with NGOs and act as brokers between carbon buyers and farmers. They discussed what works when it comes to communicating carbon finance, what doesn’t and what needs to be adapted to specific situations. The result is a policy brief, Improving carbon initiatives aimed at smallholders: Addressing opportunities and challenges through better communication, that will be presented during the UN climate change conference of parties in South Africa next month.

“There are three main issues,” says Chaudhury. “How do we popularize and translate the concept of carbon sequestration? How can we tailor messages to suit different literacy levels, genders, age groups and risk taking attitudes? And how can we support two-way communication between farming communities and external actors.”

Tactics and tools to address each of the issues are detailed in the policy brief together with successful examples. The policy brief highlights how the internationally recognized principle of Free, Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) provides a framework for developing effective communication approaches and tools. FPICsupports the rights of local communities to give or withhold their consent to proposed initiatives that may affect the lands they customarily own, occupy or otherwise use.

Martin Weru from The International Small Group and Tree Planting Program (TIST) says he was surprised to see that most of the challenges faced by people working on different projects in different countries were extremely similar.

“While our approaches to dealing with these problems might be different, the principles we use are quite similar, such as defining carbon sequestration in the local language and context, using different tools for women, the elderly, youth and other groups, and repeatedly sharing the same message because learning such complex concepts takes time,” says Weru

“Some people are using local proverbs or metaphors to explain climate change while others refer to local examples of weather-related events, and most of us use drawing and diagrams.”

While it has a strong focus on East Africa, reflecting the workshop attendance, the broad challenges the policy brief addresses are thought to be the same across the globe and the lessons can be adapted to suit different circumstances.

The policy brief is expected to be of particular use for other carbon project practitioners, agriculture and forestry extension officers, farmers organizations, investors ad national apex climate change organizations.

Download:

World Agroforestry Centre / CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, 2011. Improving carbon initiatives aimed at smallholders: Addressing opportunities and challenges through better communication. ICRAF Policy Brief 11. World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Nairobi, Kenya.