Agriculture

The Agriculture Initiative supports increasingly ambitious actions, policies and targets across the agriculture sector in four focus areas: enteric methane, rice, manure, and burning. Our key achievements include: 

National policy

• At COP25 the CCAC, WRI and Oxfam launched the paper Enhancing NDCS: Opportunities in Agriculture.  It identifies actions that benefit adaptation and mitigation priorities in the agriculture sector and offers practical examples for how to include them in enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).  

Paddy rice

• We funded research by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) that Vietnam is using to design, finance and implement the low-carbon rice production technique - alternate wetting and drying (AWD) - as part of its NDC.  
• With IRRI we promoted the AWD technique in Bangladesh. By early 2020, the multi-sectoral Focal Area Network (FAN) had worked with an estimated 13,000 farmers and cut of methane emissions equivalent to approximately 19,500 tons of carbon dioxide per year through the adoption of the AWD technique. Read Bangladesh's story 

Livestock

• With FAO, World Bank and Global Environment Facility, we supported three large national livestock management programs of more than $460 million in Uruguay, Ethiopia and Bangladesh that can reduce approximately 4 million tons of methane each year. Read Uruguay's story 
• Together with the FAO, we strengthened Kenya's capacity to develop the Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Dairy Cattle in Kenya 1995-2017, which applied IPCC Tier 2 methods for collecting data and calculating emissions.  
• In Vietnam, we surveyed mitigation options for livestock production and identified using biogas systems for livestock waste treatment as a priority measure for Vietnam's updated NDC.  
• 13 countries developed baseline and mitigation assessments for enteric fermentation in the dairy and livestock sector using the Global Livestock and Environmental Assessment Model (GLEAM). 

Open burning

• The CARE Peru and the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI) project, alternative methods to open burning in Peru, received the national "Antonio Brack Egg" environmental award. Farmers who adopted these methods contributed to air quality and climate benefit and got greater yields and increased profits. 
• The “no burn” pilot demonstration project with the Punjab Agricultural Management and Extension Training Institute (PAMETI) recorded a 95% reduction in opening burning in pilot villages. No field fires were detected during the fall 2019 burning season.  

Other

• We funded or supported activities in 47 countries.
• We supported 18,672 person days of training and 41 institutional strengthening activities. 
• We supported 283 technology and practice changes that led to SLCP reductions in the four focus areas.
• We produced 60 knowledge resources. 

Funding (as of Oct. 2020): US$8.5 million 
Co-funding (as of Oct. 2020): Over US$1.8 million 
Catalyzed funding (as of Oct. 2020): US$1.1 million