Can Agriculture Achieve Emissions Neutrality By 2050 through Agroforestry?.

The global community has set a goal to reach GHG emissions neutrality by 2050 to forestall the worst effects of climate change. Agriculture faces major challenges in contributing to emissions neutrality, and has somewhat limited prospects to do so through reductions in methane emissions from livestock and rice, soil organic matter losses, and other sources. However, a recent analysis by Zomer et al (2016) has indicated that 43% of agricultural land globally now has greater than 10% tree cover. In some major countries tree cover has increased by more than 7% during the past decade. Tree cover is increasing at a rate such that vegetative carbon in agriculture may be accumulating as a rate of 200 million tonnes of carbon per year. Could the further acceleration of tree cover through agroforestry be the key to achieving agricultural GHG emissions neutrality by 2050? The evidence indicates that such an tree cover acceleration is not only possible, but that the co-benefits of doing so will contribute to poverty alleviation, production efficiency and land restoration, and that these benefits will make such investments attractive to national policymakers, particularly in the tropics. How much more carbon could be stored in agricultural landscapes if we promoted the many agroforestry practices that increase farm income and resilience to climate change? A serious agricultural drawdown analysis needs to be done urgently at the global, national and farming levels to find out the answer to this question, and to influence the policy levers toward ramping up the adoption of agroforestry all-around the world. Global success in achieving emissions neutrality may indeed depend heavily upon it.