Common Ground
Executive Summary
Why the search for common ground?
Recent major international reports have highlighted the alarming impact of food production systems on climate change, land and biodiversity. The COVID-19 pandemic provides another illustration of the need for more sustainable food systems that work with, and not against nature, while ensuring food security and decent livelihoods for a rapidly growing population.
Achieving greater sustainability depends on reaching consensus between diverse actors, over goals as well as approaches. It requires increased coordination and the development of synergy between a variety of stakeholders in the agriculture and conservation sectors.
This report shows that common ground between the agriculture and conservation sectors for mutually beneficial action exists, and that there is great potential for widespread adoption of sustainable agricultural practices that can meet our needs for food, feed, fibre, and energy. More widely, sustainable agriculture can contribute to food, water security, climate regulation and other objectives, supporting progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and other international targets for climate change, biodiversity and land degradation.
Conserving soil biodiversity improves agricultural land health
Farms are modified ecosystems that depend on nature in many ways, for nutrient supply, water supply, pest control, pollination and other services. Soil biodiversity conservation is at the heart of most sustainable farming practices, but scientific knowledge is weak: 90-95% of soil biota remains unidentified and less than 1% of some groups has been described. A close correlation is observed between the diversity and abundance of soil species and soil ecosystem function. Management of this biota by farmers should be better informed by science as to how species interact in the soil and how positive interactions can be enhanced or restored by farming practices.
Improved agricultural land health can bring massive benefits for society
The ‘four per thousand’ (or ‘4‰’) initiative aims to increase soil organic carbon annually by 0.4% of its current stock within the first 30-40 cm of soil, through the implementation of economically viable and environmentally sound agronomic practices. This report shows that meeting the 4‰ target on all the world’s agricultural land can bring major potential benefits in mitigating climate change, increasing food production and improving green water stocks. Achieving the goals of 4‰ on the world’s agricultural lands could increase carbon capture by croplands and grasslands by approximately 1 Gt per year over the next 30 years, equivalent to10% of global anthropogenic emissions based on 2017 emissions. The avoided social cost implied by this contribution to climate change mitigation over the 2020-2050 time horizon is in the order of US$600 billion per year in present value terms.
Crop production could also benefit from achieving the goals of 4‰. Production of three major crops – maize, wheat and rice – is estimated to increase by 23.4%, 22.9% and 41.9% respectively with an estimated value of US$ 135.2 billion per year between 2020 and 2050. The benefits of production increases will differ by region but would be highest in developing countries, and particularly in Africa. Meanwhile, the reduced reliance on inorganic fertiliser can reduce pollution of watercourses while increased land productivity could offset the demand for further conversion of land for agriculture.
Hydrological cycles also benefit from increased soil carbon and the capacity of soils to store water could increase by up to 37 billion m3. The increase in soil moisture from 4‰ has the potential to reduce reliance on irrigation, with estimated global savings of US$ 44 billion per year. The benefits of 4% could result in increased resilience for vulnerable farming communities, and reduced exposure to projected risks associated with climate change, such as floods, droughts and storms.
Solutions for restoring and maintaining agricultural land health are well established
Many sustainable agricultural approaches and practices are known and documented, and they have proven to be effective in conserving and enhancing soil and above-ground biodiversity on farms. Farming systems are closely linked to the wider landscape through many ecological interactions that can also be managed. Landscape management practices also have a direct impact on agriculture and landscape productivity and on the level of provision of ecosystem services. Sound farming and landscape management practices can have a direct positive impact for farmers, especially the most vulnerable, for consumers’ health and nutrition, and for society as a whole.
Incentives are needed to accelerate the transition
For land health to be fully mainstreamed in institutions, markets and policies, the true values of agricultural landscapes must be better understood, and rewarded, and ways found to incentivise and de-risk the transition to more sustainable farming. However, farmers must overcome numerous hurdles to adopt sustainable practices, such as insufficient awareness, high transition costs, unreliable markets, and aversion to change due to a range of risks and uncertainties. Many farmers are tied to existing unsustainable management systems through trade policies, legal frameworks and public incentives. This report highlights three priority areas for progress to address these hurdles:
1. Understanding and rewarding the diverse values of agricultural land and landscapes
2. Developing incentives and regulations that encourage or enable transformative action, while relaxing disincentives
3. Reducing risks associated with the transition towards agriculture and food production that conserves land health.
Conditions are favourable for rapid progress
Restoring land health is one element of wider changes needed in the food system. Countries that are food-deficient, or whose economies depend heavily on the agriculture sector, are likely to continue prioritising overall agricultural production. Managing land health should be central to achieving production goals while safeguarding sustainability and strengthening the resilience of farmers. Improvements are also needed in equitable access to natural resources (especially land and water) and access to food, to reduce unhealthy diets, and to mitigate food loss and waste. This will require unprecedented coordination between many actors in food supply chains and beyond, guided by bold political leadership.
The coming decade offers a unique window of opportunity to orientate agriculture towards a more ambitious set of goals that balance needs for food, feed, fibre and for a variety of ecosystem services that will contribute globally to more sustainable and resilient societies. Public policies should aim to achieve net-positive impact of agriculture on key indicators of biodiversity by 2030 as well as stabilisation of the land area under agriculture, in order to increase biodiversity and resilience in agricultural landscapes and to reduce land degradation, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
Recommendations
1. Prioritise soil and landscape biodiversity for food and nature. Sustainable agriculture depends on maintaining land health and conserving biodiversity in agriculture soils and landscapes. Land health must therefore be a central goal for the agriculture sector to contribute to ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainability without expanding the overall area of agriculture land. In doing so, agriculture can become a Nature-based Solution that contributes to some of the most pressing societal challenges. Farmers and the agriculture sector should urgently adopt ambitious targets for land health, and the conservation sector should strengthen the scientific foundation for monitoring progress.
2. Mainstream agroecological approaches for managing agricultural landscapes. Agroecological approaches that foster synergies between agriculture and biodiversity are already available and should be scaled up and mainstreamed in all relevant policies, instruments and institutions. This should be done in close partnership with farmer communities and organisations. Emphasis should be placed on creating conditions that enable farmers to achieve sustainability at both the farm and the landscape level, and reduce the risks they face during the transition. While rapid progress is already possible based on existing knowledge, as demonstrated in a number of countries, deeper analysis is needed on behavioural, organisational, social, political, financial and economic barriers to adoption.
3. Establish targets and indicators at national and global levels for sustainable agriculture Adoption of sustainable agriculture approaches should be up-scaled by establishing clear targets for sustainability metrics. More specifically, the agriculture sector should aim for a net-positive impact on key indicators of biodiversity by 2030, including the stabilisation of the total land area under agriculture, increase of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes, and reduced pollution and greenhouse gas emission. These indicators should complement socioeconomic data on incomes, employment, poverty reduction, and livelihood resilience, especially for those most in need, including youth and women.
4. Reward ecosystem services to incentivise sustainable farming. The global transition to sustainable agriculture requires a shift from thinking of agriculture in terms of ’food, fibre and fuel’ (and other products), to thinking in terms of ’production, water, climate and nature’ (and other services). The agriculture sector’s overriding policy goal should be to enhance the overall value of farming, promoting all values of agricultural soil, land and landscapes and the services provided to society, and putting in place relevant regulations and incentives. Innovative incentives and de-risking measures need to be designed and tested, which requires creative and coherent policy frameworks. 5. Promote change throughout the global food system to enhance sustainability Restoring and conserving soil and land health must be promoted as an integral part of wider system transformation, focusing on national and international policy convergence to connect soils and land health with sustainable and healthy diets. Public subsidies and private financial flows should be redirected from conventional to more sustainable agriculture, while unlocking factors that block the transformation, such as input subsidies, specialisation of systems, standardised supply chains, and power asymmetries. Greater attention should be given to responsible landscape and supply chain investments that protect healthy soils and reward sustainable farming practices.
6. Build consensus on environmental stewardship in the agricultural sector. Dialogue between the agriculture and conservation communities must be intensified at local, national and international levels. The agriculture sector need improved information on the ecological and living nature of soils as natural capital. Conservation actors need greater appreciation of sustainable agriculture as a solution for increasing biodiversity, and agricultural landscapes as an opportunity to expand global conservation area coverage. New or adapted institutions may be required to incentivise action and secure sustainability outcomes at the agroecosystem or landscape level.
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