New report: Biotechnology to help mitigate climate change

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) released its annual report on “The State of Food and Agriculture” focusing on impacts of climate change on agriculture and the implications for food security. According to the report, there is an urgent need to support smallholders in adapting to climate change.

Farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk and community foresters are dependent on tasks that involve climate and at the same time, these groups are also the most vulnerable to climate change. Thus, there is a greater need for access to technologies, markets, information and credit for investment to adjust their production systems and practices to climate change.

“Biotechnologies, both low- and high-tech, can help small-scale producers in particular to be more resilient and to adapt better to climate change,” the report indicates. Although the other sections of the report focus mainly on innovation through management practices, it was highlighted that “some practices may depend on the outcomes of biotechnology, such as improved seed.”

The report is available on the FAO website.