Rodale Institute at COP15: Making friends through soil carbon

By Eliav Bitan

Tuesday, Dec. 15 – Copenhagen, Denmark: Greetings from my first day at COP15! The full name for the event is the United Nations Conference on Climate Change. You can track happenings and what happened at The Uptake.

The thousands of people who've descended on the conference center mean that today I waited in line for over 8 hours in order to gain access to the negotiating space. Once in, I found the IFOAM  [International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements] exhibit, and greeted the folks who we've been working with for nearly three months now to prepare our research and proposals for this event.

The IFOAM team (including representatives from UK, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, Uganda, Holland, Argentina and other nations) has been lobbying and developing relationships with other groups since the conference began nearly 10 days ago. Partnerships with Greenpeace and Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) have been fruitful for us, as we are involved here in an informal coalition of NGOs working on agriculture.

As a result of the COP15 negotiations, a working group on agriculture and climate change will be formed to explore how agriculture will fit into future international climate treaties. Originally this group was only going to include governments. As a result of our lobbying here, it seems that NGOs such as IFOAM and Rodale will be included to share our expertise in this process.

Being part of the IFOAM delegation has had its benefits as well, as we are now entering conversations with IFOAM and numerous other partners about soil crediting systems. There is widespread interest in developing carbon sequestration projects and paying farmers for carbon. I was in line with representatives of groups doing work in this area, including biochar, rainforests, and green energy. All were interested to hear about Rodale and organic agriculture.

On person who stopped by was the Tanzanian Minister of Environment. She said she would continue support for organic systems and would read the material I gave her, including the “Guide to Organic Agriculture and Climate Change” (that includes Rodale input and logo) and IFOAM’s “African Organic Case Studies.” She and a colleague were intrigued by what we had to say about supporting local food security and the economic proposition for organics.

All best,
Eliav

Eliav Bitan is policy and partnerships associate for the Rodale Institute
Other RI@COP15 posts

Background: IFOAM, Rodale and taking organics to Copenhagen

“High sequestration, low emission, food secure farming: The IFOAM guide to organic agriculture, climate change and food security” is the foundational document for organic farming advocates at Copenhagen. It pulls together research from the Rodale Institute and two other leading organic research organizations to show how powerful agriculture can be to feed people while responding to climate change. (25 pp with 2 pp academic citations)

Key areas of organic agriculture covered include:

• Affordable high-sequestration practices based on local resource
• Continuous farmer-based adaptation to climate change
• Ideal adaptability to improve world’s 400 million smallholder farms
• Locally applicable, affordable and people-centered
• Empowers local communities
• Established practices, systems and markets
• Experience, practices and expertise to share

 Organic farming uses techniques that are ecologically sound and productive, making them key avenues of mitigating (lessening the damage of) climate change. The positive traits include:

• Avoidance of chemical fertilizers and herbicides 
• Building soil carbon and soil fertility  
• Avoiding bare soil 
• Appropriate tillage
• Combining perennial and annual crops
• Sustainable livestock management, including re-integrating animals and crops 
• Optimal manure management 
• Improved grassland management
• System of Rice Intensification (SRI)
• Local production and consumption

Noting how these techniques bring life-giving change, the guide notes that an organic export promotion started in 1997 has enhanced the livelihoods of approximately 110,000 farms in Uganda.