The surveys are also increasingly tracking the development of regenerative agriculture practices across geography and farm types in 50 countries globally.
The industry — as it did in 2020 — has proved its resilience in terms of production of food, fuel, and fiber and at the same time posted positive GDP contribution in the face of a global economic rollercoaster and a pandemic that continues to blight just about everywhere.
Held every year now for close to three decades climate change has gone in that time from being a fringe issue to a global priority in 2021.
In the case of the U.S., some 75% of the source of nitrous oxide is considered specifically coming from agricultural soil management systems, while livestock production and paddy rice are seen as two of the main sources of agriculture’s global methane GHG contribution.
While political measures to reduce agriculture’s methane output cannot be ruled out in the future — for both paddy rice and meat production — they are not planned in the short term and given that neither China nor India were signatories to the methane pledge, any policy impact on paddy rice farming is unlikely just now.
Aside from the Global Methane Pledge, COP26 also reached a deal on establishing a framework that will govern the rules on the global trading of carbon offsets.
Thirty countries have signed on in support, with the goal of finding new innovations in smart agriculture and sustainable food systems. By the end of COP26, the initiative raised more than $4 billion, including $1 billion from the US.
Deforestation is often used as an argument against agricultural development with many countries disagreeing on the detail, so seeing an accord reached under this pledge should be considered as positive to agriculture in the longer term.
Kynetec’s FarmTrak Sustainabilty service tracks the progression of regenerative agriculture practices at a 10km grid square resolution across 52 countries globally, and together with our partner, DTN, for every individual farm in the USA.