We stand face to face with a ‘quadruple’ planetary emergency, consisting of the interlinked crises of climate change, global health, biodiversity and food security. To meet these pressing global challenges –all of which have consequences for food security – we must transform our global food system.

In order to sustainably meet projected food demand by 2050 while avoiding climate catastrophe, the global food system must double food production whilst decreasing agricultural emissions by two-thirds. Critically, policies that reduce land use change and promote ‘forest positive’ agriculture must be put in place to avoid the expansion of crop and pasture into forests and other natural ecosystems.

Significant progress has been made in slowing the global rate of forest loss, but current deforestation rates of nearly 10 million hectares per year remain alarming. The vast majority of deforestation occurs in tropical and subtropical countries; while trends differ across regions, more than 70% of this forest loss is attributable to agriculture, with commercial agriculture playing a prominent role in both legal and illegal forest conversion. Most forest conversion for agriculture is driven by a handful of commodities – soy, palm oil and cattle products, but also cocoa, rubber, coffee and maize – for export as well as for domestic consumption.

Halting deforestation has been central to internationally negotiated commitments and initiatives ranging from REDD+ to the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to the multistakeholder New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF), as well as private sector commitments to eliminate deforestation from their commodity supply chains. While ambitious targets for 2020 passed without being met, momentum to tackle deforestation remains high, and the urgency for action to halt deforestation while contributing to rural livelihoods, food security and sustainable economic development has never been greater. There are significant opportunities to improve on existing efforts while mobilizing further finance and enhancing coordination across sectors. Governments, in particular, have a vital role to play in enabling ‘forest positive’ commodity value chains; on the consumer side, regulatory frameworks are gaining ground, and on the production side, governments are employing integrated landscape approaches to transition to more sustainable agricultural practices that promote food security and ensure income generation.

The role of governments in enabling inclusive landscape approaches to mitigate the impact of commodity production on forests was the focus of an 8^th September webinar organized by FAO’s REDD+ Team and Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), the first in a three-part series on “Halting deforestation: Tools and approaches for forest positive commodity value chains.” Governments have to take a lead role in four main action areas: 1) Enabling environment and enforcement of legality, 2) Transparent data and collaborative monitoring frameworks, 3) Capacity development and knowledge generation​, and 4) Incentives and markets for forest positive agricultural products​. Further details on priority government actions (in these action areas), together with insights into integrated landscape governance approaches and multistakeholder action to decouple deforestation from commodity production, is covered in an upcoming FAO publication on halting deforestation through forest positive agriculture and “deforestation free” commodities. 

On 8 September speakers from Mexico, Cote d’Ivoire and Brazil, together with the United Nations Development Programme and the Food and Land Use Coalition, shared their experiences and perspectives on how national and local government authorities can enable forest positive commodity value chains, with a particular focus on inclusive landscape approaches. Such approaches are embedded in most national REDD+ strategies and, in turn, in the national climate commitments known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). They aim at increasing agricultural production while protecting forests, restoring degraded lands and ensuring the inclusion of indigenous peoples, local communities, women and youth, and are crucial to the achievement of forest-positive value chains.

In Mexico, both one of the world’s most populous countries and one of its most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, the agricultural and environment sectors have coordinated to develop cross-sectoral policies and laws that reduce the impact of agriculture on forests and promote territorial development in forested areas, such as the National REDD+ Strategy. Another such tool is the Sustainable Forestry Development Law, which mandates the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to design a fire management strategy and support agricultural production that reduces the use of burning – important measures in a country where agricultural and livestock practices cause up to 35% of wildfires. The national government has also designed a program to limit agricultural expansion by restricting deforested areas from receiving economic subsidies and supports capacity development for alternative practices. Finally, it promotes policies to ensure habitat protection for pollinators and sustainable soil management, mainstreaming biodiversity and territorial planning in agricultural activities to ensure the ongoing delivery of ecosystem services.

Territorial planning is also an important tool for sustainable agricultural intensification in Paragominas, a municipality in Pará State, in Brazil’s Eastern Amazon. The municipality conducts microzoning, based on soil suitability mapping, to inform the use of two landscape management tools: production licenses for intensification, including the use of mechanization, crop-livestock integration, and silvopastoral systems, or forestry integrated with pasture management; and natural regeneration, resulting in the restoration of secondary forests on land unsuitable for crop or livestock production. While Pará State is known for its high deforestation rates, strong law enforcement and command-and-control measures since 2008, together with strategic territorial planning, has been an effective strategy in Paragominas, where forest cover has largely remained stable in recent years while economic growth and social progress have increased. This experience demonstrates that the dynamics that drive deforestation are highly dependent on local conditions, and solutions need to be designed at local level.

The dramatic loss of forest cover in Cote d’Ivoire and continued pressure on its remaining primary forest – primarily for the production of commodities such as cocoa, rubber and oil palm - calls for a coordinated, multi-dimensional response. The Regional Council of Cavally, together with the Ministry of Planning and Development, has undertaken the development of a regional Green Growth Plan with broad multi-stakeholder engagement. Recognizing the potential for positive economic, social and environmental impacts of forest positive agriculture, the region has also developed a Regional Strategic Plan for Zero Deforestation Agricultural Production, focusing on the transformation of cocoa production. The National REDD+ Strategy (French version here) and the public-private Cocoa and Forests Initiative, a partnership among Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, and more than 35 leading chocolate and cocoa companies, have provided a clear framework both for strategic planning at local level and for the development of related multi-stakeholder platforms. 

As countries pursue national pathways for food systems transformation following the Food Systems Summit this Thursday, they should keep in mind some key lessons from experiences with integrated landscape approaches:  

• There is a role for all actors (governments, private sector, civil society, communities) in halting deforestation in agriculture supply chains; concerted efforts and a multistakeholder approach that reconciles conflicting demands and seeks a common agenda is vital.
• Policy alignment, cross-sectoral government coordination and collaboration is a key enabling factor, and must be institutionalized, including through national budgets
• Integrated land use planning, inclusion of farmers, local communities and indigenous peoples, and the security of tenure rights are important enabling conditions for sustainable public and private investment
• Sustained technical support and capacity development is crucial to supporting the adoption of forest positive production models
• Shared monitoring and information systems can be useful tools for planning and keeping track of progress made
• Finance (including incentives and innovative financing modalities) is necessary to fund food systems transformation

Looking forward, projections of continued rise in the demand for agricultural commodities, from proteins to cocoa and coffee, will further increase pressures on tropical forests. As such, the urgency for action to transform food systems has never been higher. Despite existing challenges, there are encouraging signs of commitments and concrete progress to address climate change and biodiversity loss while supporting economic recovery in a post-COVID-19 scenario. Halting deforestation associated with agricultural commodities through integrated and concerted actions at landscape, national and global levels is an opportunity that must not be missed. The UN Food Systems Summit this week, together with COP26 in November, are mutually enforcing and timely catalysts for this forest positive agenda. 

The session recordings are also available in:

• French: https://youtu.be/JsVTRbbfvGk    
• Spanish: https://youtu.be/8quLXvzUGPk 

Authors:

Astrid Agostini, Coordinator, REDD+/National Forest Monitoring Cluster, FAO Forestry Division, [email protected]

Kristin DeValue, Integrated Land Use Specialist, REDD+ Team, FAO Forestry Division, [email protected]

Serena Fortuna, Forestry Officer and OiC REDD+ Team, FAO Forestry Division, [email protected] 

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