Assuring Food Security in Developing Countries under the Challenges of Climate Change: Key Trade and Development Issues of a Fundamental Transformation of Agriculture

For a large number of developing countries, agriculture remains the single most important sector. Climate change has the potential to damage irreversibly the natural resource base on which agriculture depends, with grave consequences for food security. Agriculture is most important emitter of global greenhouse gases but also has the potential to move from being a problem to becoming part of the solution provided there is a more holistic vision of food security, agricultural mitigation, adaptation and agriculture’s pro-poor development contribution. What is required is a rapid and significant shift from industrial, monoculture-based, high-input production towards sustainable production systems that also improve the productivity of small-scale farmers. The scale of adoption, the governance and market-structure challenges and difficulties involved in measuring, reporting and verifying reductions in GHG emissions pose considerable challenges.