Advanced BioFuels USA

(Solutions from the Land) Farmers with Solutions from the Land will share their experiences with reducing carbon and greenhouse gas emissions through agriculture during a side event at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27).

The live event, “Agriculture’s Role in Decarbonizing the Economy and Reducing GHG Emissions,” will be accessible on Zoom (access code: IICA*COP27) at 12 p.m. Eastern Thursday, Nov. 10.

The focus will be on how climate-smart agriculture—enabled by innovation, technology and emerging carbon markets—can help reduce carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions through soil carbon sequestration and the replacement of carbon-intensive fuels with renewable liquid fuels and renewable natural gas.

The American Biogas Council, POET and the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) are collaborators on the event, which will take place in the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture Pavilion at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

The event is one of five organized by Solutions from the Land during the conference, with goals to build support among policymakers and other stakeholders for SfL’s guiding principles for enabling food systems to support and attain the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. These principles emphasize the need to keep farmers at the center of all discussions and decision-making as well as to value science, technology, systems-based approaches, collaboration and innovation.

Farmer Participants

The decarbonization event will be moderated by Fred Yoder, an Ohio farmer. Yoder serves as Solutions from the Land co-chair and a North American Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance member.

Panelists will include farmers and value-chain partners, including:

• Bryan Sievers, Iowa grain and livestock farmer, Iowa Smart Agriculture co-chair and American Biogas Council vice chair
• Doug Berven, POET vice president for corporate affairs
• Evandro Gussi, Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) president and CEO
• Verity Ulibarri, New Mexico diversified livestock-cropping systems farmer

Links to More Information

• Full event description for the decarbonization event
• SfL’s COP27 engagement plan
• SfL farmer delegate bios
• Why SfL sends farmer delegates to COP27
• SfL Facebook and Twitter   READ MORE

RFA stresses ethanol’s low-carbon benefits and net-zero future (DRG News)

Canada’s farmers need tech, investment to cut carbon emissions: Report (BNN Bloomberg)

As COP27 begins, groups urge Canada to develop a united approach to sustainable food (Globe and Mail

Farmers Constituency releases statement for climate change action at COP27 (Solutions from the Land)

Farmers to share how diversified livestock-cropping systems deliver food, ecosystem services while addressing climate change (Solutions from the Land)

Bioeconomy At COP27: A New Spotlight For Regenerative Agriculture (World Bio Market Insights)

COP27: Small-scale growers, sustainable farming ‘left out’ of UN agriculture deal (Ag Funder)

Excerpt from DRG News: Leaders from around the world are gathering over the next two weeks in Egypt for the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP27. As governments and businesses consider options for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and combatting climate change, the Renewable Fuels Association has a simple message for COP27 delegates: Ethanol is a low-carbon renewable fuel available today to help meet climate goals—and it’s well on its way to net-zero carbon emissions in the not-too-distant future.

RFA also released an updated one-page fact sheet about ethanol’s carbon benefits.

“We’re excited about ethanol’s ability to significantly lower carbon emissions across the transportation sector and beyond,” said RFA President and CEO Geoff Cooper. “Lower-cost, lower-emitting ethanol is already cleaning up motor fuel around the world, and as we look to the future, ethanol can also play a leading role in sustainable aviation fuel or even generating electricity. It is our hope that U.S. policymakers ensure ethanol and other renewable fuels are an important part of the discussions at COP27. More and more national capitals across the globe are rightfully looking at the value of renewables like ethanol to sustainably fuel their vehicles and power their green economies.” READ MORE

Excerpt from Solutions from the Land:

Farmers from across the Americas will share how they manage both livestock and crops together using circular systems during an event hosted by Solutions from the Land at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Circular systems allow farmers and ranchers to grow food for their communities, enhance the environment and address climate change. The approach is tailored to individual farms based on their situations and needs and generally:

• Uses forages, crop residues and byproduct wastes, converting them into high-quality commodities.
• Provides food and nutritional security due to production of high-quality protein, essential fatty acids and bioavailable micronutrients.
• Retains and sequesters carbon and enhances other ecosystem services (like water quantity/quality and biodiversity).
• Provides and improves livelihoods for millions of farmers worldwide.

The event, “Circular System Pathways for Scaling Climate Smart Agriculture,” will be accessible via Zoom (access code: IICA*COP27) at 5:30 a.m. Eastern (12:30 p.m. ETT) Wednesday, Nov. 16.  READ MORE

Excerpt from Ag Funder:

• Smallholder farms were largely left out of a farming deal signed at COP27 this past weekend, according to the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food)
• Governments from around the world signed off on the “Koronivia joint work on agriculture” package.
• IPES-Food said it is “disappointing” that the package focuses predominately on Big Ag.
• Building “sustainable food systems” that reduce waste, improve nutrition and bolster the supply chain were also left out of negotiations, says the organization.

Why it matters:

Some 84% of the world’s farms are smallholdings, typically taking up less than two hectares in size.

These smallholder farmers grapple with challenges that include high input costs, unreliable equipment, and a lack of access to markets and financial credits. When something goes wrong for one of the 500 million smallholder households in the world, the families themselves often suffer. Many of the world’s smallholder farmers rank among the world’s poorest.

Smallholder farmers are also frequently located in regions feeling the worst impacts of climate change. See Pakistan’s record floods that left one-third of the country underwater as a recent example.

IPES-Food underscored these challenges in a recent statement, noting that “small-scale farmers’’ demands for climate finance to support adaptation to climate changes and to create truly long-term resilience have gone largely unmet” at COP27.

In fact, the organization suggested the Koronivia package did little more than reinforce the principles of Big Ag.

…

“[Smallholders] demanded support and climate finance for diverse and resilient agroecological food systems to help adapt to the floods and droughts they are facing – but they leave with very little.”

Belay (Million Belay, the coordinator of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa) pointed to Africa in particular, where, despite increasing levels of venture capital investment in agrifoodtech tools, most of which aim to help combat the effects of climate change or reduce agrifood’s impact on it, represents just 1% of global totals, according to AgFunder’s recent report.

“World leaders must not leave Africa’s producers to their own fate,” said Belay. READ MORE