Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says efforts to end hunger, prevent planetary overheating and improving livestock supply chains should be focus for the agricultural sectors.
José Graziano da Silva, FAO Director-General said low carbon livestock is possible.
Speaking on the sidelines of Conference of the Parties (COP23) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change said agriculture accounts for a large share of greenhouse gas emissions but is also the “most exposed of all economic sectors to the effect of climate change.”
He said that adverse effects disproportionately burdened the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, most of whom live in rural areas relying on farming, forestry and fisheries for their livelihoods.
According to Climate and Clean Air Coalition, a voluntary partnership of 122 governments, short-lived climate pollutants such as methane, hydrofluorocarbons and soot can provide for up to 0.9 degrees Celsius in avoided warming by 2050, making a significant contribution to the target of the Paris Agreement., according to CCAC.
Currently almost two-thirds of the poorest rural households raise and rely on livestock.
“With improved and climate-smart practices, we can quickly achieve more sustainable, ‘greener’ livestock supply chains,” Graziano da Silva said.
”Reducing enteric methane emissions is one of the most cost-effective climate change mitigation strategies, linking it to increased productivity and improved food security is a natural and urgent action, he said.
FAO is working with the Climate and Clean Air Coalition on reducing enteric methane emissions in Latin America, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
