Climate-smart agriculture: a review assessing the merits and future applications of a holistic agricultural paradigm that addresses climate change and development challenges.

© 2015 Daniel Thomas GardnerAgriculture is facing significant challenges into the future, especially related to food security when faced with climate change. Climate-Smart Agriculture seeks to address these challenges by providing a holistic framework for agricultural adaptation to, and mitigation of climate change, while also alleviating food security problems in a triple-win context. Climate-Smart Agriculture has origins in other agricultural paradigms, such as the Green Revolution, Conservation Agriculture and Sustainable Intensification. However it has the advantage of amalgamating the best responses from all three. Theoretically, Climate-Smart Agriculture is a universal paradigm able to solve all agricultural issues. In practice, Climate-Smart Agriculture has significant flaws. It has broad principles that cause conflicts and trade-offs even when a triple-win outcome is promised. Climate-Smart Agriculture also suffers from significant funding, insurance and technical issues, while there is little detail as to how the three arms of Climate-Smart Agriculture (adaptation, mitigation and food security) works together in practice. With some perseverance, Climate-Smart Agriculture can be the paradigm to address all these concerns, especially in a developing country context. Climate-Smart Agriculture has the platform for success, through policy formulation, pushing technologies and intervening in local agricultural systems. Even with potential trade-offs, Climate-Smart Agriculture utilises a best-practice approach to increase agricultural resilience through improving ecosystem service by utilising agroforestry and other methods. Climate-Smart Agriculture can still achieve its goals, through a mixture of novel approaches and proven techniques, it can also succeed further with biodiversity and poverty alleviation gains. However for this to occur Climate-Smart Agriculture must improve evidence building, local effectiveness, climate and agricultural policy cohesion and funding. Scientific endeavour must be prioritised with Climate-Smart Agriculture becoming more water, energy and nutrient-smart. Further research needs to occur into potential synergies and trade-offs, with more Climate-Smart Agricultural involvement in food systems, with a push for more integrated food-energy systems. Furthermore barriers to adoption need to be better understood. Funding has been highlighted as the most important issue facing Climate-Smart Agriculture. Overall funding is not well targeted, nor coalesced between adaptation and mitigation strategies. There is a lack of accountability regarding adaptation funding and an overall disjoin between Climate-Smart Agriculture, climate finance and carbon markets that must be rectified. Overall agriculture requires significant transformation. Climate-Smart Agriculture provides the framework to do this. Yet in its current state, Climate-Smart Agriculture provides nothing new, it faces significant problems that must be rectified if it is to become more than just another theoretical agricultural concept