SEARICE proposes that the objectives of the roadmap include, “to improve recognition of the continuing role of farmers, pastoralists, forest dwellers and fisher-folk around the world in the maintenance of biodiversity for food and agriculture, most especially within the context of climate change”. The report on SOW on biodiversity and agriculture already includes this objective.

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We reiterate the call of civil society organizations during the  2nd Global Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change in Hanoi, Vietnam, on September 3-7, 2012, that “climate-smart agriculture,” as mentioned in CGRFA-14/13/Inf. 10, and the terms “green growth” and the “landscape approach” have not been sufficiently considered from the perspective of small-scale producers, who are at the frontlines of climate change.

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Furthermore, we caution against the roadmap endorsing a greater role for the private sector to invest in schemes that will commodify natural resources and disenfranchise local communities. Open and critical review is needed in adopting carbon markets and market-based approaches. Carbon markets have repeatedly failed to deliver real funds to projects on the ground.

 

The IAASTD stresses that adaptation is imperative and “actions directed at addressing climate change and sustainable development share some important goals such as equitable access to resources and appropriate technologies.” The Conference should emphasize identified adaptation priorities of developing countries and the provision of steady and reliable public finance to developing countries that will have to cope with the worst consequences of climate change.

 

Also, the roadmap emphasizes productivity, highlighting the need for agricultural technologies to feed the world’s growing population amid the rigors of climate change. IAASTD finds increased productivity as a narrow focus and instead recommends a “more holistic integration of natural resource management (NRM) with food and nutritional security.”

 

We continue to believe that small scale farmers, laborers, indigenous peoples, women and civil society organizations engaged on issues of food security, food sovereignty, the right to food, and the preservation and use of traditional knowledge are essential to this debate. They provide practical, just and affordable solutions to the problems of food security and climate change. They need to be heard. No process that ignores their voices can be considered legitimate.

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