“4 per 1000 Initiative” brings agriculture to the forefront of the global climate stage –First official members meeting at COP22.
What emerged in Paris at COP21 as “visionary and hopeful”, has now been established as a pragmatic and widely-adopted initiative whose members are demonstrably committed to using the world’s agricultural soils to address climate change and food security.
Marrakech — (Fri, Nov 18)
Less than a year after launching in Paris at COP21, french Minister of Agriculture, Stéphane Le Foll kicked off the first official meeting of the “4 per 1000: Soils for Food Security and Climate” initiative (which champions the use of agricultural soils to act as a “carbon sink”), during an official side event of COP22 in Marrakech.
The meeting was organized into four distinct blocks: the Forum, “a consultation body” of the initiative’s participants and supporters, a Consortium, for determining strategic direction and governance (effectively a board of directors), a Scientific / Technical Committee, and the 4/1000 International Research Group.
The international agricultural and climate community showed enthusiastic support for the initiative, among nations and across sectors. Ministers of agriculture from Morocco and Spain joining Le Foll during the opening of the Consortium, as well as chief executives from the FAO of the UN and CGIAR. “I’m very happy to see how successful this initiative has become. We’ve got to keep the momentum going,” Le Foll announced.
An additional nine nations joined the initiative in the last year. There are now signatories from 34 nations, including Senegal which signed on during the day, and from hundreds of organizations from the civil society sector, businesses and research institutes.
The recognition of the global community’s growing consensus of the science supporting the vast potential of soils to sequester carbon, and the necessity of improving soil quality to ensure global food security was widely acknowledged throughout the day.
“COP22 has been dubbed the “COP of agriculture” and that is in large part due to the 4/1000 and its efforts to bring carbon sequestration to the forefront of the climate solutions conversation,” said Finian Makepeace, Director of Policy at Kiss the Ground.
During the event, the Consortium’s leadership was elected. The executive body is comprised of government, NGOs and civil society, but notably does not include businesses — which may address the concerns of NGOs who wish to keep chemical agriculture interests and methods separate from the initiative.
The establishment of the scientific and technical committee emphasizes the continued need for innovative and technological data collection. “We must ensure that we all engage in the important task of countries measuring and reporting soil carbon, similar to what has been done with above ground carbon,” said Philippe Mauger, president of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) during the morning Forum.
The 4 per 1000 International Research Program, made up of five research organizations (CGIAR, CIRAD, INRA, IRD and OSU), will help to improve the understanding of the technical and economic potential for soil carbon sequestration, and will include training and capacity building.
Participants (including nearly a dozen Ministers of Agriculture from countries as diverse as Finland, Uruguay, New Zealand and Senegal) repeatedly expressed their gratitude and described the initiative as essential in addressing environmental degradation, global food security and the livelihoods of farmers and local communities around the world.
“Every farmer will tell you, climate change is here,” says Andre Leu, president of IFOAM — Organics International. “We have to start taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and the 4 per 1000 initiative directly helps us do that and achieve fulfillment of the Paris Agreement.”
The 4 per 1000 Initiative is part of the Lima-Paris Action Agenda and also addresses the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2030 goals: #2 Zero Hunger, #5 Life on Land, #12 Responsible Consumption and Production, #13 Climate Action.
Interested parties can still become a partner to the Initiative for free by applying and sending a signed declaration to 4p1000.dgpe@agriculture.gouv.fr
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Aria McLauchlan, aria.mclauchlan@gmail.com
