Climate change directly influences food production and food security. Throughout the world, dedicated agronomists, crop scientists and food producers across a myriad of national, regional and international organizations are working to increase understanding of the threat, and developing tools and methods for either slowing the progression of climate change or enabling food producers to adapt to changes that cannot be stopped. RTOACC brings together stakeholders and partners from across the organic food production chain to discuss organic farming’s potential to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Its principal objectives are to initiate, support and facilitate research on organic agriculture and climate change, advise the international community on organic agriculture and climate change issues, and develop a measurement method to enable reliable quantification and certification of carbon sequestration in organic agriculture. Its activities were supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) during 2010 and 2011.
Throughout its first two years, the Round Table’s main activity was working to identify available data as well as to pinpoint data gaps that need to be filled in order to develop an organic agriculture methodology for the carbon market that would synergize with general development goals and also potentially benefit smallholders in poor countries.
FAO
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and RTOACC 2011: Organic agriculture and climate change mitigation. Rome, Italy, 82 pages (PDF).
