New research funding to support farmers in adapting to climate change
June 4, 2024 – Dr. Hannah Wittman is principal investigator on a new project funded through the 2023 International Joint Initiative for Research in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation. This is one of 32 international projects funded by Canada through the initiative, which supports transdisciplinary research that focusses on designing and implementing adaptation and mitigation strategies for vulnerable groups.
Dr. Wittman’s project is titled Agroecologicial Transitions for Climate Adaptation and Mitigation. Over the next three years, the research team will examine the influence of agroecological networks in promoting perennialization of agriculture for vulnerable farming communities in Canada, Germany, India and Brazil. Smallholder and subsistence farmers are among the most vulnerable to climate change, with extreme events affecting their livelihoods, as well as biodiversity and food security at multiple scales.
Perennialization of agriculture integrates annual and perennial crops and trees into the same farming system. Compared to annual cropping systems, which currently dominate global agriculture and markets, perennial crops show promise for climate adaptation and mitigation because of their contributions to carbon sequestration in tree biomass and soil organic carbon, and their buffering effects against soil degradation, drought, and other forms of extreme weather and climate variability.
Co-Principal Investigators on this project include Bernardo Mancano Fernandes (Sao Paulo State University UNESP), Archana Raghavan Sathyan (Kerala Agricultural University), and Verena Seufert (University of Hohenheim). Institutional co-applicants come from São Paulo State University, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research, São Paulo State University UNESP, and UBC’s Land and Food Systems. International co-funding partners are Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), and Sao Paulo Research Foundation.
Click here for more details, and to see other projects funded under the 2023 International Joint Initiative for Research in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation.
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