This blog is part 1 in the Climate-Smart Agriculture and USAID 2022-2030 Climate Strategy Webinar recap blog series. Part 2 highlights USAID’s work that is already underway to strengthen the resilience of female farmers through insurance and finance, as well as key learnings from CARE and FAO’s work in the space of gender and climate-smart agriculture. Part 1, below, offers insights into what climate-smart agriculture (CSA) means, as well as an introduction to USAID’s work in the area of food loss and waste. More than 375 individuals participated in the webinar from 64 countries.

Ann Vaughan, Senior Advisor for Climate Change in USAID’s Bureau for Resilience and Food Security, introduced climate-smart agriculture and explained why it matters for Climate Strategy implementation. She emphasized that food systems are particularly climate-sensitive and, while climate change presents many challenging impacts to food security, USAID’s response presents an opportunity to improve livelihoods while addressing a changing climate. Combining supply-side actions with demand-side interventions can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and enhance food system resilience. 

What is climate-smart agriculture?

The first panelist, Dr. Andy Jarvis, who is the Associate Director General of CGIAR’s Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT and a technical expert on climate adaptation, introduced what climate-smart agriculture means within USAID nomenclature. He explained that climate-smart agriculture strives toward three key outcomes, which are to:

1. Increase agricultural productivity and incomes sustainably;
2. Adapt and build resilience to climate change; and
3. Reduce and/or remove GHG emissions, where possible.

Dr. Jarvis noted that these outcomes are achieved through the systematic approach of changing practices, programs, policies and institutions. 

Dr. Jarvis concluded his presentation by sharing key resources, including Evidence for Resilience Agriculture, which offers insight into technologies that can help smallholders adapt to climate change in different regions. He offered a compilation of quick and easy-to-read CSA country profiles. Finally, this CSA 101 course highlights CSA basics, entry points, planning, financing and a comprehensive resource library. 

Reducing Food Loss and Waste

The third panelist, Dr. Ahmed Kablan, is the lead on efforts on food loss and waste, food safety and nutrition research for the USAID Bureau for Resilience and Food Security’s Center for Nutrition. He presented on the innovative solutions that USAID is using to reduce food loss and waste. 

He shared these facts and priorities to consider for climate change and food systems.

Dr. Kablan emphasized that food systems must become more inclusive and resilient to feed the growing populations, especially as climate change escalates the challenges that food systems face. Increasing resilience within food systems entails helping countries withstand shocks and stressors when challenges brought on by climate change occur, and inclusive approaches can help drive economic growth, employment and advance women’s economic security. One approach to creating inclusive and resilient food systems is to focus on food loss and waste, given that a significant share of food intended for human consumption is lost or wasted between farm and fork, which leads to significant contributions to GHG emissions.

Following panelist presentations, the webinar moved into a question-and-answer session, with the expert panelists sharing responses to a range of questions from the audience. These questions covered topics such as how climate-smart agriculture is different from nature-based solutions, how we can reach food loss and waste goals, specific examples of when early warning systems led to early action and how to work with USAID on institutional and capacity-building efforts. 

The panelists curated a collection of Climate-Smart Agriculture resources and content, which are available here. 

Individual speaker segments can be viewed at:

• Welcome and Overview | Ann Vaughan;
• What do we mean when we talk about Climate-Smart Agriculture? | Andy Jarvis;
• Innovative Solutions USAID is Using to Reduce Food Loss and Waste | Ahmed Kablan; and
• Moderated Q&A.

Watch the full webinar: Climate-Smart Agriculture and USAID’s 2022-2030 Climate Strategy.

Learn more about USAID’s 2022-2030 Climate Strategy in this Hub on Climatelinks.

To amplify USAID’s new 2022-2030 Climate Strategy, Climatelinks and USAID staff have been collaborating on a series of webinars. Watch the Climate Strategy Webinar Series.

This blog was originally published by Climatelinks.