Technology and Climate Smart Initiatives for Agriculture at COP27

For some time, agriculture was being referred to as a sector contributing to the climate change crisis because trees would be cleared for farming and methane production from the livestock industry.  But there are now climate smart initiatives in the agriculture sector that have changed that narrative. At this year’s COP, political leaders and stakeholders in agriculture converge to dialogue on best practices and Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Enterprise, Servulo Baeza was engaged in some of those side meetings.  C.E.O. Baeza told News Five earlier this week that there is a lot in terms of technology and agriculture that may be feasible for Belize’s reality.

Servulo Baeza

Servulo Baeza, C.E.O., Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security & Enterprise

“Through IICA, all the countries came together and have a joint declaration where they are saying that we can be part of the solution if we are included. And so that is how that conversation started and that is how we are here at COP27 here in Egypt now. Changing the way that we do things Duane. Like for instance, in the livestock sector, doing agro-silver pastoral systems in terms of improving our pasture, so you will use less pasture for your livestock and then including planting trees that will benefit the environment. So you will be using less space, you are doing reforestation and so that is contributing the carbon sequestration and to neutralizing our methane production. Another area is that we know that we have a lot of areas where there is degradation of soil so looking at those areas and how we can bring back those soils. But those things need resources; our farmers cannot do these things on their own. And so when we can come together as a region to access funding from the Global Environmental Fund or the Green Climate Fund to assist us, these are things then that can benefit our people.”