THE POTENTIAL OF AGROECOLOGY TO BUILD CLIMATE-RESILIENT LIVELIHOODS AND FOOD SYSTEMS REGIONAL ANALYSIS OF THE NATIONALLY DETERMINED CONTRIBUTIONS IN THE CARIBBEAN Gaps and opportunities in the agriculture and land use sectors THE POTENTIAL OF AGROECOLOGY TO BUILD CLIMATE-RESILIENT LIVELIHOODS AND FOOD SYSTEMS Lead Authors: Fabio Leippert Biovision Maryline Darmaun Martial Bernoux Molefi Mpheshea Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations PUBLISHED BY THE FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS AND BIOVISION FOUNDATION FOR ECOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT ROME, 2020 Required citation: Leippert, F., Darmaun, M., Bernoux, M. and Mpheshea, M. 2020. The potential of agroecology to build climate-resilient livelihoods and food systems. Rome. FAO and Biovision. https://doi.org/10.4060/cb0438en The designations employed and the presentation of material in this information product do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) or Biovision Foundation for Ecological Development concerning the legal or development status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The mention of specific companies or products of manufacturers, whether or not these have been patented, does not imply that these have been endorsed or recommended by FAO or Biovision in preference to others of a simi- lar nature that are not mentioned. The views expressed in this information product are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of FAO or Biovisioin. ISBN 978-92-5-133109-5 © FAO, 2020 Some rights reserved. This work is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO licence (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/igo/legalcode). Under the terms of this licence, this work may be copied, redistributed and adapted for non-commercial purposes, provided that the work is appropriately cited. In any use of this work, there should be no suggestion that FAO endorses any specific organization, products or services. The use of the FAO logo is not permitted. If the work is adapted, then it must be licensed under the same or equivalent Creative Commons licence. If a translation of this work is created, it must include the following disclaimer along with the required citation: “This translation was not created by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). FAO is not responsible for the content or accuracy of this translation. The original [Language] edition shall be the authoritative edition.” Disputes arising under the licence that cannot be settled amicably will be resolved by mediation and arbitration as described in Article 8 of the licence except as otherwise provided herein. The applicable mediation rules will be the mediation rules of the World Intellectual Property Organization http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/mediation/rules and any arbitration will be conducted in accordance with the Arbitra- tion Rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). Third-party materials. Users wishing to reuse material from this work that is attributed to a third party, such as tables, figures or images, are responsible for determining whether permission is needed for that reuse and for obtaining permission from the copyright holder. The risk of claims resulting from infringement of any third-party-owned component in the work rests solely with the user. Sales, rights and licensing. FAO information products are available on the FAO website (www.fao.org/publications) and can be pur- chased through [email protected]. Requests for commercial use should be submitted via: www.fao.org/contact-us/licence-re- quest. Queries regarding rights and licensing should be submitted to: [email protected]. CONTENTS Foreword vii Acknowledgements viii Acronyms and abbreviations x Executive summary xiii CHAPTER 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Rationale: bringing agroecology into climate change discussions 1 1.2 Overall objective and set-up 3 1.3 Definitions and concepts 4 1.3.1 Agroecology framework: how to understand agroecology in this study 4 1.3.2 Climate resilience 6 CHAPTER 2 International policy potential 11 2.1 Approach 12 2.2 Background on agroecology in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations 12 2.2.1 The long road to Koronivia 12 2.2.2 Analysis of the degree of integration of agroecology into nationally determined contributions (NDCs) 13 2.3 Current dynamics in the Koronivia negotiations 15 2.3.1 The Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA) process and initial submissions of parties and observers 15 2.3.2 Topic 2(a): Modalities for implementation of the outcomes of the five in-session workshops on issues related to agriculture and other future topics that may arise from this work 17 2.3.3 Topic 2(b): Methods and approaches for assessing adaptation, adaptation co-benefits and resilience; and topic 2(c): Improved soil carbon, soil health and soil fertility under grassland and cropland as well as integrated systems, including water management 18 2.3.4 Topic 2(d): Improved nutrient use and manure management towards sustainable and resilient agricultural systems 19 2.3.5 Views of key stakeholders on the current discussion on the agriculture and climate change nexus in the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) processes, including the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA) 20 2.4 Outlook: future potential of agroecology to be backed by UNFCCC 21 2.5 Conclusions: potential to integrate agroecology in international climate change policies 23 CHAPTER 3 Meta-analysis: potential of agroecology to adapt and increase resilience to climate change 27 3.1 Introduction 27 iii 3.2 Methodology 28 3.3 Results 28 3.3.1 Meta-analysis and reviews 29 3.3.2 Single system comparison studies 32 3.3.3 Reviews on advisory services knowledge co-creation and knowledge transfer 36 3.4 Discussion of the potential of agroecology to tackle climate change 37 3.4.1 Increasing adaptive capacity, reducing vulnerability, and mitigation co-benefits 37 3.4.2 Research gaps 38 3.4.3 Submission for Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture: elements to be included in topics 2(b), 2(c) and 2(d) 38 3.5 Conclusions 39 CHAPTER 4 Country case studies on the policy and technical potential of agroecology 43 4.1 Overall methodology 43 4.1.1 Methodology for assessing the policy potential for agroecology 43 4.1.2 Methodology technical potential 45 4.2 Results case study Kenya 47 4.2.1 Context Kenya 47 4.2.2 Policy potential in Kenya 48 4.2.3 Technical potential in Kenya 58 4.2.4 Social dimension case study: perception of farmer communities 73 4.3 Results case study Senegal 75 4.3.1 Context Senegal 75 4.3.2 Policy potential in Senegal 76 4.3.3 Technical potential in Senegal 86 CHAPTER 5 Conclusions and recommendations 103 5.1 Overall conclusions 103 5.1.1 Agroecology is gaining momentum on the international policy level 103 5.1.2 Solid scientific evidence demonstrating that agroecology increases climate resilience 104 5.1.3 Lessons learned from Kenya and Senegal 105 5.2 Recommendations 108 5.2.1 Overall key recommendations 108 5.2.2 Further recommendations to donors, decision-makers and other stakeholders 109 5.2.3 Recommendations in the context of Koronivia 109 5.2.4 Recommendations to researchers and donors 110 References 113 Annexes 123 iv TABLES, FIGURES AND BOXES TABLES 1. An extract of SHARP scoring of agroecosystem resilience indicators based on modules and sub-indicators 46 2. Actors engaged in the Kenya policy-making process and their roles 53 3. Summary: policy potential of agroecology in Kenya 56 4. Numbers of farmers sampled from four agroecological zones in Kenya 61 5. Summary of SHARP dataset scores for sampled farmers 61 6. Priority ranking assessment (greatest priorities on top and least priorities at the end of the table) for agroecological and non-agroecological farm systems based on technical, adequacy and importance scores of each SHARP module. The lowest scoring modules are considered of the highest priority and requiring intervention 63 7. Senegal's agroecological zones and their characteristics 75 8. Stakeholders involved (light green) and currently not involved (white) in agroecology- related issues 82 9. Number of farmers sampled in 2 agro-ecological zones in Senegal 87 10. Selected SHARP themes for which agroecological farms were found to have statistical different resilience scores in the social domain compared to the control group, and the implication of these differences 90 11. Comparison between Niayes and Koussanar, on agroecosystems resilience that were statistically significant between AE and control groups. For these indicators, AE had higher resilience scores 98 12. List of indicators where greater adaptability and resilience is shown by agroecological farmers in Kenya and Senegal 106 FIGURES 1. The multilevel analysis approach 3 2. The FAO 10 elements of agroecology and Gliessman’s (2014) levels of transition towards sustainable food systems 5 3. Vulnerability, adaptation and resilience framework 7 4. Linking FAO’s 10 elements of agroecology and Gliessman’s five levels of food system transformation (inspired by HLPE report) with the 13 SHARP resilience indicators 8 5. Frequency of references to the elements of agroecology in nationally determined contributions 14 6. Percentage of countries by regions, referring to different elements of agroecology in their NDCs 15 7. Roadmap of the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA) 16 8. Percentage of party (n=17) and observer (n=13) submissions to the KJWA workshop on topics 2(a) at SB49 making specific reference to any of the ten elements of agroecology 17 9.