Agriculture and food systems are responsible for nearly one-third of all global emissions. Paradoxically, while contributing to high emissions, this sector is itself vulnerable to the effects of climate change, particularly impacting smallholder farmers from low- and middle-income countries.
However, amidst the challenge of high emissions, the agricultural sector also presents a crucial opportunity to combat climate change and bolster the economic resilience of smallholder farmers. Positively, there is a growing focus on climate action by stakeholders within the agricultural sector, including the private industry. Nowadays, an increasing number of agri-food corporations are committing to reducing their carbon footprint and transitioning towards net-zero goals.
This research report, supported by IDH and developed by Intellecap, seeks to assist agriculture sector stakeholders in their net-zero or climate action commitments by recommending technology solutions for the same. The report prioritizes and deep-dives into five technology clusters, namely bio-inputs, decentralized renewable energy, precision agriculture, energy efficiency, and farm waste management solutions, while evaluating their scalability in low- and middle-income countries.
Broadly, the report provides a comprehensive overview of net-zero transitions in agriculture and covers the following topics:
- Emission hotspots across agricultural value chains
- Efforts made by the private sector to meet their net-zero commitments
- Feasible technology options to facilitate the transition to net-zero agriculture in the context of smallholder farmers
- Case studies of technology implementation for net-zero transitions
- Collaborative actions required to scale high-impact technology clusters
The report is expected to be valuable for a wide range of sector stakeholders, including corporations, technology service providers, development funders, and governments. These stakeholders may be involved in reducing carbon footprints, designing products or services for climate change mitigation, or creating an enabling environment for climate action in agriculture.
Read the summary report here.
If you have any queries or feedback on the report, please write to borthakur@idhtrade.org