Across the developing world, policymakers and development practitioners concerned with eliminating hunger and improving nutrition are confronting a stark reality: as the world struggles to stop climate change, the nutritional demands of growing populations will increase the size of agriculture’s carbon footprint. TCI is meeting this challenge with an ambitious project aimed at reducing the greenhouse gas emissions associated with agriculture while improving productivity and benefitting farmer livelihoods.

Confronting two crises

India is the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind only China and the United States. Under the Paris Climate Accord, it has pledged to reduce its emissions by 33-35 percent from 2005 levels. Complicating that task is the country’s simultaneous need to address widespread malnutrition among its growing population. Agriculture is responsible for nearly 20 percent of India’s emissions, with livestock and rice cultivation its biggest contributors. Between 1990 and 2014, agricultural emissions rose 25 percent.

This issue is not unique to India. Globally, agriculture and allied activities contribute to around 25 percent of overall greenhouse gas emissions. A 2020 report from the FAO found that nearly 690 million people worldwide are hungry, a number that will grow as the population increases to an expected 9 billion people by 2050. To feed a population that size, global food production will have to increase 70 percent. Without a change in practices, agriculture’s environmental footprint will increase as well.

To overcome the crises of climate change and food insecurity, emissions will have to be reduced while agricultural productivity increases. This presents an enormous challenge, but by adopting a holistic approach to the two sides of the task, it is not insurmountable. Through the Zero-Hunger, Zero-Carbon Food Systems Project, TCI hopes to show that the ability of the agricultural sector to achieve “net-zero carbon” en route to zero hunger is both desirable and achievable.

Creating a roadmap for reduced emissions and high productivity

In the first stage of the project, TCI researchers assessed the challenges facing different agricultural production systems in the state of Bihar, identified possible mitigation measures for each system and modeled their impact on emissions if successfully implemented.

As a result of the first stage, TCI produced a set of policy options for reducing agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and boosting productivity in Bihar.

Generating evidence and scaling up

In the second stage of the project, researchers are working to assess the viability of several climate-smart interventions and generate evidence to support scaling up those interventions through existing agriculture and livelihood programs.

Researchers are focused on three interventions identified in stage one of the project:

• Reducing cattle herd size and emissions from livestock through the use of sex-sorted semen with improved genetic material and feed supplements that reduce methane production
• Achieving optimal water and nutrient usage in rice production systems by using integrated management practices
• Boosting solar energy production through the implementation of agrivoltaics—using the same land to produce both agricultural products and electricity

These activities have the potential to reduce net agricultural emissions while improving productivity and farmers’ livelihoods in Bihar, providing a replicable model for other states in India.

Stage two of the project also includes the development of agricultural extension protocols designed to better inform smallholder farmers about climate mitigation strategies and their benefits.

Featured image: A demonstration of agrivoltaics—the use of the same agricultural land for both growing crops and generating solar power. (Photo by Milorad Plavsic/TCI)