COP - MOP 13 of the
UN FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
December 14, 2007, Bali, Indonesia
FARMERS’ CONTRIBUTION
Address by Jack Wilkinson, President of IFAP
Mr. Chairman,
Ministers,
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is a pleasure and an honour for me to address this critical event on behalf of the farmers of the world. My organisation, the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP), brings together 115 national farmers’ organisations, located in both developed and developing countries all over the world. I am the President of IFAP and a farmer from Canada.
Mr. Chairman, agriculture is at the heart of climate change issues. It is both a sector that will be seriously impacted by global warming and increased weather variability, and at the same time it is a sector with a significant potential to provide answers to mitigating climate change and to adapt to its effects.
The United Nations Millennium Development Goals have identified agriculture as an important sector which deserves significant attention if the targets to reduce poverty by half by 2015 are to be achieved. The recently published World Bank Development Report on agriculture (WDR 2008) recognises the importance of agricultural development as key to reducing poverty and as an engine for economic growth and rural development. Other international organisations are pushing agriculture higher up their development agendas too. This is what needs to happen also here in Bali. The poverty, development and climate change agendas are closely linked around an agricultural agenda, and yet only a few of the speakers at this Conference have made this link with agriculture.
It is widely accepted that climate variabilities put additional pressure on natural resources especially on freshwater and land. The custodians of most of the earth’s freshwater and land resources are the farmers, and so it seems evident that their involvement is critical to success in fighting climate change.
Forecasts by the IPCC show that by 2020, up to 250 million people in Africa are expected to suffer from water stress; productivity of rain-fed agriculture would decrease by 50 percent. Land degradation and desertification would be exacerbated, affecting in the first instance agricultural lands leading in turn to uncontrolled migration, rural exodus and conflicts.
Agriculture and farmers, especially those in developing countries, are therefore the first victims of the adverse effects of climate change.
However, none of this needs to happen.
Farmers and their farmers’ organisations are ready to work with the Secretariat of the IFCCC and its member governments, and others, to develop the considerable potential of agriculture to provide the right answers both in terms of adaptation and mitigation. These include adoption of more sustainable agricultural practices and technologies, and sustainable land management such as zero tillage, agro-forestry, direct seeding, and carbon sequestration.
Farmers need greater support from the research community to enhance this positive role, especially through the development of new seed varieties, drought and moisture tolerant plants as well as risk management tools. This is a big part of the answer to sustaining productivity increases under climate variability, while at the same time protecting the environment.
Mr. Chairman, farmers are disappointed that the UNFCCC is not yet addressing these issues adequately. The role of sustainable land management as a major contributor to mitigation and adaptation to climate change is being wrongly overlooked, and positive contribution of farmers is being poorly recognised. As the President of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers, I would like to take this opportunity to offer our cooperation as farmers to the UNFCCC and parties to the Convention to find the right strategies to develop the potential of agriculture in the framework of the Bali road map, in the lead up to COP 15 in 2009.
Thank you for your attention.