The world is in the midst of combined challenges and threats. Climate change, forest depletion, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and widespread pollution by fertilizers and pesticides threatening the environment, biodiversity, and human health. We are also searching for new ways to produce enough, safe and nutritious food to meet demand of a fast-growing population, expected to reach almost 10 billion by 2050, while safeguarding the environment.

According to a recent study published in the Nature Food, the world's food systems – the way we produce, process, and package food - are responsible for more than one-third of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Roughly two-thirds of the emissions from the global food systems come from the land-based sector, comprising agriculture, land use and land use change. GHG emissions are a driver of observed and future climate change that will alter the agroclimatic conditions that underpin our current food production systems.

The impacts of climate change are expected to be most adverse in low- and middle-income countries. Cambodia is ranked among the top ten countries in Asia most vulnerable to climate change, notably because a majority of Cambodians depend on agriculture and natural resources.

Action is required to adapt to these changes and minimize the drivers of future risk. Charting environmentally sustainable pathways for agricultural development therefore has a central role to play in managing and mitigating climate change.

Conservation agriculture (CA) is an important part of  future more sustainable food systems. The resulting impact of its three key principles - minimum soil disturbance, permanent soil cover with crop residues and live mulching, and crop rotation and intercropping – means that it can be considered  an agro-ecological practice, as well as a climate-smart one. Meanwhile, the sustainable intensification (SI), the approach that aims to produce more food using the same amount of land but with less impact on the environment, is equally important.

CASIC – a new pathway to CA and SI in Cambodia

Cambodia is at a turning point since the mid-2020 after an approval on the formation of the Cambodia Conservation Agriculture Sustainable Intensification Consortium (CASIC) and the established CASI roadmap for Cambodia for the first time. These reflect a strong commitment of the Royal Government of Cambodia through the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) to foster the dissemination of CASI practices to restore and preserve agricultural soils in Cambodia, advancing in farm sustainability and contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation.

CASIC is a national mechanism which aims to create an enabling environment to boost investment in CASI, coordinate a CASI networks in Cambodia, and promote CASI practices, while establishing knowledge management of CASI related resources for easy access by smallholder farmers, semi-commercial farmers, and agricultural cooperatives.

During the validation workshop to present CASIC’s five-year roadmap (2021 – 2025) organized by the  MAFF, Mr Oum Kosal, Assistant FAO Representative (Programme) was invited, representing FAO, a specialized and leading development partner in the sector. He provided support on the development of this important roadmap and highlighted that FAO will continue carrying a role in facilitating the evidence-based policy dialogue and advocacy on agroecology.

He commented that, “the roadmap that offers innovative and climate-resilient agricultural production approaches and technologies like CASI and agroecology plays a significant role in the production system, while helping us to achieve environmental goals, thus bridging to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.”

In Cambodia, Conservation Agriculture has been one of the FAO’s priorities, which is reflected in the current FAO Country Programming Framework 2019-2023. FAO’s assistance in this important area ranges from strengthening agricultural data collection and availability to inform decision-making and assisting in policy formulation.

The intervention on the ground of FAO to promote CA includes:

• Piloting application of the Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE) in Cambodia and other countries in the region. The tool will be integrated into several other pipeline projects. 
• The recently completed FAO and Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded project “Life and Nature” promoted CA as a climate smart agriculture (CSA) practice. The climate-smart farmer field schools allowed farmers to try innovative practices and methods to strengthen resilience and livelihoods, especially addressing soil degradation issues through growing cover crops, improving water management with drip irrigation systems, and exploring innovative pest management practices.
• Supporting the General Directorate of Agriculture of the MAFF to develop a National Soil Information and a Land Suitability Evaluation System for Cambodia, and training national experts on well-developed modern methods for digital soil mapping.
• Together with IFAD, FAO assisted the MAFF to develop and the Agricultural Development Policy (ADP 2021-2030) and its Agricultural Sector Master Plan (AMSP) 2030 in which agroecology, climate smart agriculture, and conservation agriculture are well reflected among the priorities for the country.
• Supporting the national Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programme for the past 25 years to ensure safe agriculture products, while safeguarding the environment. The successful approach and experiences have been applied and replicated across the country by key stakeholders in the sector.
• Assisting MAFF to identify key priority actions to be included in the updated Cambodia’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDCs), which was submitted to the UNFCCC late last year.

At the regional level, FAO is part of the Agence Française de Développement and the European Union funded project- Agroecology and Safe food System Transitions (ASSET) in Southeast Asia. Together with CIRAD, FAO is facilitating the evidence-based policy dialogue and advocacy on agroecology including the dialogues with ASEAN on the formulation and endorsement of a common vision on agroecology.

FAO also has a number of pipeline projects aiming to promote agroecology, CSA and Conservation Agriculture. These upcoming projects will take advantage of the growing interest in standards and certification opportunities for sustainable agricultural products, and the compatibility with agroecology and CSA to drive a broader shift toward sustainable food systems.

Globally, FAO strongly promotes Sustainable Crop Production Intensification and it is a strategic objective of the Organization. It allows countries to achieve sustainable increases in agricultural productivity through an ecosystem approach. Learn more about the Sustainable Crop Production Intensification here.