Solutions towards sustainable agriculture

The potential of pulses—beans, peas, chickpeas, lentils, and other pulses—to help address future global food security, nutrition and environmental sustainability needs has been acknowledged through the UN declaration of the 2016 International Year of Pulses. However, the full set of benefits that pulse crops can offer has not been systematically characterized.

This paper specifically seeks to develop a framework to evaluate the economic, social and environmental benefits and potential trade-offs of pulse production in different geographic, agro-ecological and economic contexts. The framework defines the sustainability elements to be evaluated in any given context, given the diversity across cropping systems and geographic contexts of suitable pulse growing areas. The framework also provides a means to evaluate the potential sustainability contributions of pulses should they be brought into a cropping system, or integrated into crop rotations.

The primary audience for this white paper is the food industry, but government policy makers, researchers and other stakeholders will find utility in it as well. 

1. Fiscal policies and incentives are often key underlying drivers of forest change that influence land use behavior in sectors that encroach on forests, although the understanding of their impacts on forests is often lacking. Fiscal policies have not been systematically examined as part of REDD+ readiness.
2. Public policy and related fiscal policy and incentives must seek coherence across sectors, in order to over- come inherent conflicts between sectors and competing land uses, and to send the right signals.
3. REDD+ provides an entry to rethink fiscal incentives for agricultural commodities as part of National REDD+ Strategies and Action Plans. 

Following the introduction of improved agricultural practices at national scales, there is a growing demand to estimate mitigation benefits.

Taking an inventory approach, our results provide an overview of what has been achieved through the introduction of no-till.

The question at the heart of our study is: what are the mitigation co-benefits of technology change supported by agricultural development polices? Our work offers a preliminary response that highlights the urgent need for relevant information in formats useful to informed decision-making.