09/07/13

Carbon projects for smallholder farmers can ‘reduce poverty’

Copyright: Flickr/Gates Foundation

By: Gilbert Nakweya

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>Carbon projects for smallholder farmers can ‘reduce poverty’</h1>
<h4>By: Gilbert Nakweya</h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p>[NAIROBI] Projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on small-scale farms can help African farmers access carbon markets and reduce poverty, and should be scaled-up, according to a policy brief.<br />
Carbon projects that reduce emissions of greenhouse gases such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide" title="Carbon dioxide">carbon dioxide</a> and<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane" title="Methane">methane</a> can earn farmers 'carbon credits' for sale in the global carbon market.</p>
<p>But smallholder carbon projects face serious management and policy challenges, including management complexity and the high cost of project development.</p>
<p>Despite this, project managers are developing innovations to get around the challenges, says Seth Shames, the policy brief's lead author, whocoordinates Eco-agriculture Partners' Payments for Ecosystem Services program.</p>
<p>The brief draws lessons from six projects in East Africa involving poor farmers, and assessed how to ensure projects are more equitable, successful, and sustainable.</p>
<p>The lessons include upfront financing and minimising financial risks for famers, the need to cultivate strong relationships between carbon project managers and community groups, empowering local actors to manage projects, and the need to develop partnerships to scale a project up.</p>
<p>The research was conducted by EcoAgriculture Partners and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security(CCAFS).</p>
<p>It focused on five aspects: project organisation and management, the structure and role of community groups within the projects, costs and benefits for managers and farmers, strategies to manage risks to farmers, and efforts to support women's participation.</p>
<p>The participating projects included CARE International's Sustainable Agriculture in a Changing Climate, Vi Agroforestry’s, Clean Air Action Corporation’s (CAAC) and the International Small Group and Tree Planting Program (TIST), all in Kenya</p>
<p>Others are the Cocoa Carbon Initiative in Ghana, ECO-TRUST's Trees for Global Benefits in Uganda and World Vision’s Assisted Natural Regeneration Project in Humbo, Ethiopia.</p>
<p>The brief concludes that more smallholder farmers in Africa could take advantage of carbon markets and other climate change mitigation financing mechanisms to get training and support for managing agricultural land more sustainably, which would improve the yield and resilience of their agricultural systems.</p>
<p>Shem Wandiga, managing trustee at the Centre for Science & Technology Innovations, Kenya, said the research proves that helping small scale farmers adapt to climate change will improve food production, food security and reduce poverty.</p>
<p>"As the new international mechanism under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is developed, successful projects described in this study should be up scaled by governments and in that way mitigate the impact of climate change," he says.</p>
<p>The policy brief was published last month (23 May) by <em>CCAFS.</em></p>
<p><a href="http://www.ecoagriculture.org/publication_details.php?publicationID=503" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Link to policy brief</a></p>
<p><em>This article has been produced by SciDev.Net's Sub-Saharan Africa desk.</em></p>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/sub-saharan-africa/news/carbon-projects-for-smallholder-farmers-can-reduce-poverty/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/sub-saharan-africa/news/carbon-projects-for-smallholder-farmers-can-reduce-poverty/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

[NAIROBI] Projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on small-scale farms can help African farmers access carbon markets and reduce poverty, and should be scaled-up, according to a policy brief.
Carbon projects that reduce emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide andmethane can earn farmers 'carbon credits' for sale in the global carbon market.

But smallholder carbon projects face serious management and policy challenges, including management complexity and the high cost of project development.

Despite this, project managers are developing innovations to get around the challenges, says Seth Shames, the policy brief's lead author, whocoordinates Eco-agriculture Partners' Payments for Ecosystem Services program.

The brief draws lessons from six projects in East Africa involving poor farmers, and assessed how to ensure projects are more equitable, successful, and sustainable.

The lessons include upfront financing and minimising financial risks for famers, the need to cultivate strong relationships between carbon project managers and community groups, empowering local actors to manage projects, and the need to develop partnerships to scale a project up.

The research was conducted by EcoAgriculture Partners and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security(CCAFS).

It focused on five aspects: project organisation and management, the structure and role of community groups within the projects, costs and benefits for managers and farmers, strategies to manage risks to farmers, and efforts to support women's participation.

The participating projects included CARE International's Sustainable Agriculture in a Changing Climate, Vi Agroforestry’s, Clean Air Action Corporation’s (CAAC) and the International Small Group and Tree Planting Program (TIST), all in Kenya

Others are the Cocoa Carbon Initiative in Ghana, ECO-TRUST's Trees for Global Benefits in Uganda and World Vision’s Assisted Natural Regeneration Project in Humbo, Ethiopia.

The brief concludes that more smallholder farmers in Africa could take advantage of carbon markets and other climate change mitigation financing mechanisms to get training and support for managing agricultural land more sustainably, which would improve the yield and resilience of their agricultural systems.

Shem Wandiga, managing trustee at the Centre for Science & Technology Innovations, Kenya, said the research proves that helping small scale farmers adapt to climate change will improve food production, food security and reduce poverty.

"As the new international mechanism under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is developed, successful projects described in this study should be up scaled by governments and in that way mitigate the impact of climate change," he says.

The policy brief was published last month (23 May) by CCAFS.

Link to policy brief

This article has been produced by SciDev.Net's Sub-Saharan Africa desk.