Agriculture for climate sustainability and food security
Speaker: A/Prof Richard Eckard
Agriculture faces a confluence of pressures in the coming years. To feed a growing world population we will need 70% more food by 2050. However, in the absence of adaptation, up to 25% of the world’s food production potential may be lost by 2050 due to environmental breakdown, largely due to climate change. While agriculture is vulnerable to climate change, it is also a significant contributor producing around 14% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, with another 7 to 14% potentially attributable due to deforestation linked to food production. A number of strategies and frameworks have been proposed to address the conflicting pressures on agriculture, including Conservation Agriculture, Sustainable Intensification and more recently The Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture, launched at the 2014 New York Climate Change Summit. The presentation will discuss the challenges facing agriculture, in the context of climate change and food security, including the proposed global frameworks to address these challenges.
When: Tuesday 16 June 12.30-1.30pm
Where: Rm 449, Level 4, Melbourne School of Design (see map)
Richard is Professor and Director of the Primary Industries Climate Challenges Centre (www.piccc.org.au), a joint research initiative between the University of Melbourne and Agriculture Victoria. He is a science advisor to the Australian, New Zealand and UK governments, and the UN FAO and European Union, on climate change adaptation, mitigation and policy development in agriculture. His research focuses on profitable and sustainable livestock production systems, nitrogen cycling and loss in agricultural grazing systems, with a recent focus on carbon farming and options for livestock production systems to respond to a changing climate. Richard is also a network leader of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gasses and member of the Greenhouse Gas and Animal Agriculture international science advisory committee.