1. Using ICT for Climate Change
Adaptation and Mitigation
through Agro-ecology in the
Developing World
ICT4S-2013: The First International Conference on
Information and Communication Technologies for
Sustainability, ETH, Zurich, February 14-16, 2013.
Helena Grunfeld, John Houghton
Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia
WWW.VU.EDU.AU 1

2. Outline
• Motivation for the paper
• Agro-ecological farming
• Agriculture, climate change, poverty reduction, ICT
• Using ICT for scaling organic input
• Enabling conditions at the macro-level
• Research agenda
• Recommendations
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3. Focus of paper and presentation
Climate change Use of ICT for
adaptation and agroecological
mitigation
farming for Working
hypothesis for
Agriculture • climate scaling
change organic input
adaptation and to agro-
Poverty
reduction and mitigation and ecological
human • poverty farming,
development reduction and facilitated by
human ICT
ICT development
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4. Motivation for study
How can ICT be used to support
sustainable farming methods?
• Working hypothesis for scaling of organic input to agriculture
• Use ICT to achieve sustainability and poverty reduction
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5. Agro-ecological farming
• Convergence of agronomy and ecology
• Enhances agricultural systems by mimicking natural processes
• Based on science and practices
• Improves the resilience and sustainability of food systems
• Strong conceptual connections with the right to food
• Supported by an increasingly wide range of experts within the scientific
community, international agencies, incl. FAO and UNEP.
From Report submitted by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to
food, Olivier De Schutter to the UN General Assembly, 2010
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6. Agriculture/climate change/poverty reduction
• Agriculture: 30% of GHG emissions causing global climate change
• Indirectly: 13%, including from fertilisers and livestock
• Indirectly: 17%, mainly through deforestation and land use changes
• Agro-ecological agriculture suggested as suitable for adaptation and
mitigation
• Also poverty reduction properties – potentially cheaper inputs
• Potential for unskilled job opportunities
• Conflicting views re impacts of agro-ecological farming
• Africa: yields of small-scale farmers have doubled
• Meta-analysis: lower yields encourage land clearing
• Can take several years to reach comparable yields
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7. Agro-ecological farming requires different
inputs and is knowledge intensive
Different
inputs
Application
Information Awareness Decision of new Knowledge
by farmer methods
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8. Inputs into agro-ecological farming
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Composting at Trorkeat Village, Mesang District, Prey Veng Province, Cambodia

9. Inputs into agro-ecological farming
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CSARO: Community Sanitation and Recycling Organisation – outskirts of Phnom Penh

10. Roles of ICT in scaling inputs to agro-
ecology
• Information for knowledge exchange
• Open distance learning
• Open educational resources
• Open access to research
• Communication: farmers-researchers-markets
• Facilitates transparency critical for trust in organic supply chain
• Market information, e.g. price
• Reduces asymmetry between farmers and traders
• But also requires access to other resources to be effective
• Supply chain productivity improvements and innovations
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11. Enabling macro-level conditions
• Policy intervention required: market does not pay for negative
externalities of agriculture
• Must pay attention to interconnected dimensions of
• sustainable agriculture,
• food security,
• climate change,
• poverty reduction, and
• Information systems to support these linkages
• Enabling policies likely to be more successful than coercive
• Property rights (address “land grabs”)
• Funding
• Governments, NGOs, aid agencies
• Climate change funding sources, e.g. Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and
Payment for Environmental Services (PES).
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12. Research agenda
• Ascertain sustainability and poverty reduction outcomes of such
initiatives – requires the development of models for evaluation
• How is ICT used and how could it be better used in the value chain in
agro-ecological farming
• What software tools would be appropriate in the different stages of the value chain
• Investigate potential market for commercial input into organic farming in
developing countries:
• What are the constraints facing this sector – supply and demand?
• What role can ICT play to overcome constraints?
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13. Recommendations
• The United National Environment Programme - 2011 report “Towards
a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and
Poverty Eradication” – to act on its recommendations about up-
scaling green inputs into agro-ecological agriculture
• Donors supporting agriculture and/or ICT4D (implementations and
research) projects to encourage agro-ecological farming,
incorporating human development and poverty reduction objectives.
• Agro-ecological farming to become eligible for funding from clean
development mechanism sources, subject to meeting human
development and poverty reduction criteria
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