Climate action in the agricultural sectors has never
been more important than today. Crops, livestock,
forestry, fisheries and aquaculture provide
direct livelihoods to over 1.3 billion people and
their dependants, produce food for our growing
population and support national economies.
However, climate change is already modifying and
degrading productive capacities and the natural
resource base and ecosystems on which they rely.
It threatens to undermine all dimensions of food
security, not only productive capacity: climate
change can limit the stability and potential growth
in the incomes, especially of the poorest, and
thereby reduce their ability to purchase nutritious
food; it increases risk of market disruptions;
it affects supply and storage systems; climate
change has even been found to adversely impact
the nutritional content of some foods. At the same
time, boosting food production by 60 percent to
feed an anticipated world population of 9 billion
people by 2050 challenges the long term goal of
achieving carbon neutrality by the same year.
Farmers, fishers and foresters are already adjusting
to these changing conditions and pressures. They
need support that helps them sustainably build
the resilience of food systems and ecosystems to
shocks and strengthen their adaptive capacity to
cope with increased variability and slow onset
changes in order to succeed in their efforts of
securing food security and nutrition.