The scale of the challenges posed by climate change requires urgent action. Agriculture is both a major cause of global warming, and will be significantly affected by it. More demands are now being placed upon agriculture: global food security, responding to climate change, protecting environmental services. This presents both challenges and opportunities to policy-makers and practitioners.

Many climate change adaptation or mitigation initiatives have been project-based activities but this is insufficient. Climate change responses require more coordinated action amongst relevant stakeholders across different scales. Planning and capacity strengthening has to be integrated into government policy-making in a coherent fashion. Responding to climate change requires consideration of the implications for trade flows as well as production impacts. Economic models may need to be revisited. Climate change challenges need to be understood as they interact with other major development processes (e.g. globalisation, de-agrarianisation, urbanisation, migration).

This paper, Exploring the links between Climate Change, Agriculture & Development, explores the most important climate change concepts and frameworks relevant to agriculture and development, and identifies how each might be applied to agriculture. It is part of the CDKN-funded project, Using climate compatible development principles in African agricultural research and advisory services, which investigates ways in which ideas and principles of climate compatible development (CCD) are being used by agricultural research and advisory services across Africa, and reasons why this uptake has not been greater.

For a more detailed exploration of the linkages and guiding concepts relevant to Climate Change, Agriculture and Development, please see here.