Dossier
Climate-Smart Agriculture
Agriculture emits greenhouse gasses and therefore contributes to climate change, but agriculture and food security are also threatened by climate change. The growth of the world population and increase of income levels has resulted in a increased demand for food. Yet, this demand is increasing faster than ever before because the number of middle and high income people in the world is growing rapidly. Climate-Smart Agriculture addresses on the one hand the reduction of the environmental and climate impact of agricultural activity and on the other hand the development of food production methods and crops that are well adapted to changing weather conditions.
Climate-Smart Agriculture was placed on the political agenda during the UN Climate Summit on 23 September 2014. In 2011, Wageningen University & Research already initiated a global research alliance on Climate-Smart Agriculture. The Dutch government has now taken this subject to the international political arena. In New York, 75 countries agreed that measures should be taken to drastically increase food production with substantial reduction of resource usage and greenhouse gas emissions.
The Netherlands and Climate-Smart Agriculture
The Netherlands can play a key role in designing Climate-Smart Agriculture plans. Wageningen University & Research develops state of the art knowledge for Climate-Smart Agriculture and collaboration with companies and governments results in cutting-edge innovations.
Since the Climate-Smart Agriculture - Science for Action statement was published in 2011, Wageningen University & Research has been working with various renowned organisations on a global research agenda for Climate-Smart Agriculture. The current state of affairs is summarised in the Position paper Climate-Smart Agriculture.
News on Climate-Smart Agriculture
-
New feed additive significantly reduces methane emissions from dairy cows
28 January 2021 - News - A novel feed additive can be included in dairy cow diets to significantly reduce methane emissions. That was demonstrated by a trial at the Wageningen University & Research innovation centre Dairy Campus in Leeuwarden. The emission reductions vary from 27% up to 40% of methane per cow, depending on the diets and the amount of methane inhibitor in the feed. Royal DSM developed the Bovaer methane inhibitor. -
Gert van Duinkerken in podcast series 'Feed for Thought' on circularity in the animal feed sector
23 June 2020 - News - Gert van Duinkerken, Business Unit Manager at Wageningen Livestock Research has made an appearance in the podcast series 'Feed for Thought' by FeedInfo News Service to discuss ways in which animal nutrition research and the animal feed sector may contribute to climate neutral and circular perspectives. The topics included sustainable feed chains, the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on research and on the future of livestock farming and animal nutrition chain. -
Future dairy barn offers more room for cows and climate
19 June 2020 - News - The majority of cows live in barns whose design has barely been updated over the last fifty years; the cubicle stable. Dairy barns of the future will likely focus on natural cow behaviour, climate control, reducing emissions, re-using waste streams, manure quality and capital efficiency. An international team of scientists of, among others, Wageningen Livestock Research, has mapped the possibilities. Paul Galama, of Wageningen Livestock Research, headed the investigation. -
Planting trees on coffee fields and plantations can protect coffee plants from climate change
29 May 2020 - News - Agroforestry in coffee fields, which means growing coffee under the shadow of trees, could contribute to the conservation of coffee plantations whose existence is under threat from climate change. This is demonstrated by model calculations conducted by Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and the Federal University of Viçosa (Brazil) for Zona de Mata, a key coffee region in Brazil. -
AGROS programme launched: businesses work with WUR to optimise agroecology with technology
26 May 2020 - News - Society has become more critical of the greenhouse horticulture, arable farming and dairy industries and demands change, but the current farming systems can only meet this demand to a limited extent. The way forward will involve a transition to a healthier and more resilient agricultural and horticultural system. In the new AGROS programme, we are investigating how technology can help with this transition. -
80 million euro for improvement agricultural soil management in Europe
24 February 2020 - News - The ‘European Joint Programme on Agricultural Soil Management’, or EJP SOIL in short, started on 1 February 2020. This week the kick-off meeting is taking place in Orleans, France. Results of the EJP SOIL can help improve agricultural soil management all over Europe and make it sustainable at the same time. It will be part of the efforts needed to tackle major societal challenges, like food security and adaptation to climate change. -
Millions of euros in subsidies for research into sustainable agricultural production
16 December 2019 - News - Peter Groot Koerkamp, Professor of Agricultural and Bio resource Engineering at Wageningen University & Research (WUR), receives a Crossover grant of 7 million euros from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The grant was awarded to the SYNERGIA programme, which carries out research into agricultural production systems. Groot Koerkamp is the coordinator of the programme. -
Bright farmers help others navigate towards sustainability
11 December 2019 - News - For agriculture to be able to feed the world in 2050, rapid improvements in sustainability are needed. That’s the message Rogier Schulte will be sharing in Redesigning Sustainable Foodscapes, his inaugural address at Wageningen University & Research on Thursday 12 December. The traditional format of scientific research – which is to keep making gradual improvements – is too slow in this case, he argues. “My chair in Farming Systems Ecology specialises in identifying the solutions we will need in 2050, and how we can achieve them as quickly as possible.” -
Brochure ‘Manure, a valuable resource’ updated
20 August 2019 - News - With new views and insights on livestock manure Wageningen Livestock Research has updated the brochure ‘Manure, a valuable resource’. The brochure gives a highly illustrative overview of Dutch manure policies, facts and figures, management solutions, and the integration of manure into a circular bio-based food system.
Projects on Climate-Smart Agriculture
-
SENSE project: Synergies in integrated systems
01 January 2024 - Project - To what extent can integrated crop-livestock-forestry (agroforestry) systems be part of the solution to climate and biodiversity crises? The SENSE project develops scenarios for farm circularity and evaluates their (i) potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, (ii) resilience, using probabilistic risk analysis, and (iii) side effects on other societal goals. -
Microbiome in relation to CH4 and NH3 emissions
01 January 2024 - Project - Reduction of methane emissions can be achieved through an integrated feed and animal-oriented approach. Enteric methane production is largely influenced by feeding strategies and by control of the (rumen) microbiome. This project plan investigates the microbiome track and its influence through animal management. -
Low Carbon Dairy: working together on a 50% reduction of the footprint of milk
12 July 2023 - Project - Wageningen University & Research is working to achieve a 50% reduction in the carbon footprint of milk by 2030 through the four-year Low Carbon Dairy public-private partnership (PPP). We are doing this in partnership with Unilever’s dairy supply chains involving Ben & Jerry’s and CONO Cheesemakers, and Nestlé with Vreugdenhil Dairy Foods. Feed companies (Agrifirm, ForFarmers and De Heus) and Duynie (supplier of co-products), Lely (robots and data systems for dairy farms), and Rabobank are also participating. -
A global to local study of climate smart livestock in Kenya (PhD project - Annita Kirwa)
01 May 2023 - Project - The project approaches the governance challenge of addressing sustainable Development Goals (SDG) interactions from a global to local lens through a multi-level case study of the Kenyan dairy sector. The study focuses on the ways through which bilateral and multilateral donors as well as government ministries are coordinating to address trade-offs and build synergies within the climate smart livestock context. The study aims contribute insights on how coordination mechanisms can transform a fragmented SDG governance system towards a polycentric system for an effective SDG implementation. -
Roughage management in a circular dairy system: reducing nutrient losses
01 January 2023 - Project - The dairy sector in The Netherlands is under pressure to increase its sustainability. After the progress made inthe past 30 years regarding nutrient efficiency, further efforts are required to comply with new issues, raisedby societal concern: nitrogen emissions (ammonia), greenhouse gas emissions (methane) and closing regionalnutrient cycles (circularity). Dairy processors are working on this market shift by incorporating thesesustainability goals in their milk sourcing and quality strategy, both in their processing as well as in the primaryproduction phase. Dairy farmers therefore need to be supported to be able to make their operational andstrategic management more sustainable within their possibilities. -
Climate-smart cattle breeding
01 January 2023 - Project - Reducing the CO2 footprint of dairy products has become an essential aspect of sustainable dairy production. Since dairy cows’ methane emissions are a significant contributor to the CO2 footprint, and the Dutch agricultural sector faces the challenge of further reducing methane emissions with 2.1 Mega tonnes by 2030 and even more by 2050, farmers urgently need cost-effective and efficient ways to reduce methane emissions. Some solutions to reduce enteric methane emissions have been extensively researched. Additives or manure fermentation, for example. -
Egypt and Jordan - Climate-Smart Agriculture
01 January 2022 - Project - In this project, a perspective is being developed to stimulate Climate-Smart Agriculture in Egypt and Jordan in the coming years. Through a collaboration with partners working on projects in the two countries and local stakeholders, experience and knowledge from previous projects is included in the perspective that is being developed. -
Nature-based Solutions for Climate Resilient and Circular Food Systems
01 January 2022 - Project - Nature-based solutions are claimed to positively contribute to food security under climate change conditions. However, the knowledge underpinning this claim is fragmented and insufficiently existent. This project aimed to improve our understanding about nature-based solutions in the context of food systems at risks due to climate change. -
Microbiome in relation to CH4 and NH3
01 January 2022 - Project - Potential reduction measures via the feed and animal track - The integrated approach to methane and ammonia in dairy farming, with the aim of implementing the targeted reductions in 2030, means that for the ration, the entire chain of measures and practices to arrive at a ration (ensilage, grassland management, grass extraction, quality, grazing, fertilisation, etc.) must be investigated. The effects of this in practice will be tested on pilot farms and demonstrated on demo farms so that action perspectives can be given to farmers. -
Cow Act: Regional activation of Danone's sustainability strategy
28 September 2020 - Project - Key challenge: how to come to regional activation plans for milksheds in France, Spain and Poland to further develop and implement the sustainability goals of Danone on milkshed and dairy farm level.