On Thursday, DSM’s co-CEO highlighted the deep connection between climate change and food systems and stressed the importance of acting quickly and using technology to address the challenges they create.
Geraldine Matchett told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” that food systems were “one of the leading causes of climate change, with about 25% of … greenhouse gases coming from the agricultural and food space.” They were also, she said, “one of the greatest victims.”
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “food systems” encompass everything from production and processing to distribution, consumption and disposal.
An important part of this is agriculture, which is sensitive to climate change. Indeed, the FAO has described that climate change has “both direct and indirect effects on agricultural productivity, including changing rainfall patterns, drought, flooding and the geographic redistribution of pests and diseases”.
Given the above, it is no surprise that many consider the challenge of producing enough food while adapting to climate change and reducing the ecological footprint of agriculture as enormous.
Later this year, these topics will be discussed at length at the COP26 Climate Change Conference and the UN Food Systems Summit, which will be held in the Scottish city of Glasgow and New York respectively.
Looking ahead to these events, Matchett described himself as “very optimistic”. She added, “If there is (a) awareness that there is urgency, but there is already a lot of innovation to solve this, we can get to work.”
Matchett went on to explain how she thought a renewed focus on agriculture would be put during COP26.
“I think one of the most important actions that will be taken… is for each country to anchor agricultural space in its objectives,” she said.
There is a “very understandable reason why this was very difficult in the beginning: it is because the food space is not made up of a few large corporations or corporations, but millions of farmers, but millions of families.”
Recognizing that the reach of this area was very broad, Matchett also addressed how things can change for the better through carbon sequestration and other technologies related to agriculture and ranching.
The United States Geological Survey describes carbon sequestration as “the process of capturing and storing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.” If we break things down a bit further, carbon capture can occur naturally – through forests, for example – or through artificially designed systems developed by humans.
“There are many things where you can actually turn the farming community into the heroes of helping to combat climate change, and be better off at the same time,” she added. “So there’s a great opportunity, and that’s the beauty of that space: it’s packed with opportunities.”
Ideas and innovation
An example of this may be the Cauca Climate-Smart Village project in Colombia, an initiative that has focused on developing agricultural practices that are hoped to be both sustainable and resilient to future challenges.
Ana Maria Loboguerrero is head of global policy research at the CGIAR research program on climate change, agriculture and food security.
In an interview with CNBC last year, Loboguerrero said that the Cauca project worked with farmers to generate evidence about “ the practices, the technologies that can help us increase productivity and food security, that can help us increase adaptation to climate change. and variability, and that can help us reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “
During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum on Wednesday, moderated by CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick, the idea of using new technology and innovations in agriculture was reinforced by PepsiCo’s CEO Ramon Laguarta.
“The concept of demonstration farms is proving to be very powerful,” he said.
“So building demonstration farms where we have the new techniques and where … neighborhood farmers are going to learn from their peers, that’s a huge concept (s) we have a lot of demonstration farms all over the world.”
“(The) second concept we’re working on, with the World Economic Forum and some other colleagues, are innovation hubs,” said Laguarta.
“There’s a lot of money… a lot of ingenuity, fintechs are going to… other fields – there isn’t enough going to agritech,” he continued.
“And I think we can play a role – including large companies with the public sector – to build innovation hubs, to bring technology and innovation closer to farmers.”