Over 1,000 experts from across the world are due to meet in Nairobi from Monday for an international meeting to discuss the importance of trees on farms for humanity's survival, organizers said on Thursday.
As food security and slowing forest destruction top the global agenda, the Second World Congress of Agro-forestry will feature new research on sustainable approaches to farming that can help slow climate change and meet food demands of an extra three billion people by 2050.
"The 2nd World Congress of Agro-forestry to begin from Aug. 23 to 28 will highlight the need for a greater commitment to research and growing trees in farming systems to address urgent global challenges of climate change, deforestation, and food security," the statement from the World Agro-forestry Centre (ICRAF) said.
The meeting whose theme is Agro-forestry -- the future of global land use, will assess opportunities to leverage scientific agro-forestry in promoting sustainable land use worldwide.
"Over 1,000 researchers, practitioners, farmers, and policy makers from all corners of the globe are expected to attend, including Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and renowned environmental activist, and M. S. Swaminathan, World Food Prize laureate and "Father of the Green Revolution in India," it said.
Tree geneticists will explain successful processes for domesticating tree species such as rubber, coffee and indigenous fruits.
"Economists will present findings of studies on value-adding and improving access to markets. And soil scientists will debate the best tree-based systems for reversing land degradation," the statement said.
The meeting comes after the World Agro-forestry Centre and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) called for the widespread uptake of "green" agricultural practices that will deliver multiple benefits to the world's rapidly growing populations--from combating climate change and eradicating poverty to boosting food production and providing sustainable sources of timber.
The two agencies say while farmers in developing countries are one of the world's largest, most efficient producers of sequestered carbon, to date it has not been possible to calculate or verify how much they are removing from the atmosphere.
Last month, the World Agro-forestry Centre and UNEP said they have partnered in a project that promises to provide the basis for widespread adoption of agro-forestry and other sustainable forms of agriculture.
Agriculture, deforestation and other forms of land use account for nearly one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions.
With just a few months to go until the crucial UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, agricultural and environmental experts agree that all forms of land use should be included in a post-Kyoto climate regime.
UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said addressing the range of current and future challenges -- from the food, fuel and economic crises to the climate change and natural resource scarcity ones -- requires an accelerated transition to a low carbon, resource efficient Green Economy for the 21st century.
"Farming will be either part of the problem or a big part of the solution. The choice is straight forward: continuing to mine and degrade productive land and the planet's multi-trillion dollar ecosystems or widely adopting creative and climate-friendly management systems of which agro-forestry is fast emerging as a key shining example," said Steiner.
According to a UNEP report, the agricultural sector could be largely carbon neutral by 2030 and produce enough food for a population estimated to grow to nine billion by 2050, if proven methods aimed at reducing emissions from agriculture were widely adopted today.
A study by World Agro-forestry Centre scientists, for example, on fertilizer trees that capture nitrogen from the air and transfer it to the soil indicates that their use can reduce the need for commercial nitrogen fertilizers by up to 75 percent while doubling or tripling crop yields.
Researchers suggest that integrating agro-forestry in farming systems on a massive scale would create a vital carbon bank.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates no less than a billion hectares of developing country farmland is suitable for conversion to carbon agro-forestry projects.
(Xinhua News Agency August 21, 2009)
