"It’s raining, raining… but not in my heart..."
Unexpectedly, it has been raining here in Marrakech at the start of the 22nd climate summit (COP22), just three days after the momentous 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change came into force internationally. But my heart has been buoyed by the enthusiasm of fellow farming organisations here to ensure that the talks in Marrakech deliver on the fundamental priority in the Paris Agreement - of safeguarding food security while fostering climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions, in a manner that does not threaten food production.
Over the past two days, Luisa Miguel Etchevehere, president of Sociedad Rural Argentina and board member of the World Farmers Organisation, has presented statements to representatives of the world’s governments on behalf of the Farmers Constituency. He called for:
• urgent next steps to enable the delivery of significant improvements in agricultural productivity and resilience; and
• that global finance mechanisms assign a higher priority to agriculture in their funding programmes
And I’ve just finished chairing a meeting of all the constituencies – farmers, researchers, business, youth, environmental NGOs, etc. – with the chairs of two of the negotiating bodies of the UNFCCC – the Subsidiary Body on Implementation and the Subsidiary Body on Scientific and Technological Advances. Both groups are important in helping us meet one of our objectives – to get more money for adaptation and mitigation flowing towards agriculture.
So now all eyes are on Farmers Day...
For more information on Farmers Day and COP22 click here.
To see what work farmers are doing to tackle climate change on their farm, take a look at a brochure put together by the four UK farming unions to showcase the work of agriculture.