Dialogue on ‘Climate Smart Agriculture’

About 25 national experts on agriculture and climate change gathered in Lahore the other day for dialogue on Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) in Pakistan, organised by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) together with the World Bank and UK Department for International Development (DFID).

In an effort to advance knowledge and mainstream CSA, CIAT with its partners is establishing national CSA baselines aimed to assess policies and practices related to CSA in several countries globally, in the shape of Country Profiles (CPs). The purpose of the CSA CPs is to identify enabling environments and barriers for mainstreaming adoption of CSA, as well as ongoing and potential CSA activities and avenues for financing uptake of practices.

It targets national and sub-national planners, decision-makers and implementers, along with donors and NGOs seeking to invest in and promote CSA in specific regions or countries.

Several CSA Country Profiles have been developed throughout Latin America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. Pakistan is one of the six countries throughout Asia currently benefitting from the development of a CP, with profiles for Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Vietnam and Philippines also underway. 

The one-day event in Lahore had participants from provincial governments, national research institutes, universities, farmers, NGOs and federal government.

The experts discussed the challenges climate change was creating for the agricultural production in Pakistan, and identified suitable practices at farm-level to address the challenges.

A second workshop will be held among policy makers and key stakeholders in Islamabad later this week to assess and discuss institutions, finances and policies for CSA out-scaling in Pakistan.