Evergreen agriculture a must for global resilience says UN Panel

In an all-encompassing report on sustainable development, a newly released UN report includes a whole section outlining a case for a new green revolution. While praising the positives from the first green revolution, the Panel suggests it has served its purpose and it may be contributing to ongoing environmental challenges. They are instead urging what they dub as an evergreen revolution. A revolution that “increases productivity while reduces resources intensity and protects biodiversity."

Evergreen Agriculture is climate smart agriculture that uses principles of agroforestry to develop sustainable agriculture. The Panel insists, "An immediate push on sustainable agriculture would yield enormous social, economic and environmental dividends." It continues, “Smallholder farmers have enormous untapped potential to increase yields, stimulate rural economies and become export earners instead of net food buyers.”

With investments singled out as a key factor in the new revolution, the report reveals that organizations such as the CGIAR will need to be involved in order to help focus investments on priority areas of agriculture especially as "agricultural yields have fallen by 10 percent since 1960 and where climate change has the potential to hit farming particularly hard".

Read the whole report here.