Sustainable Agriculture & Food Policy

There is little doubt that agriculture is both affected by and directly affects climate change. Exactly how to address agriculture within the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UFCCC), however, is not easy to answer. Before Durban, negotiating text had been circulating since before the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, virtually unchanged for two years.

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One of the major issues being considered here at COP17 is adaptation.

"There are definitely a lot of eyes on Oakland," said Nathan McClintock, a UC Berkeley student writing his doctoral thesis on urban agriculture. "This would be a signal to cities like Sacramento and San Francisco to address the animal issue." Read the article

Stabinsky said: "African governments see money; and the picture that the World Bank is painting is a very worthy one. The more land you have, the more soil carbon you can sell. And there is so much land tenure based on customary tenure in Africa; lots of people don't have private title of their land. "So if you really can create the need for a verifiable commodity [in carbon], there may be a reason for governments to go in and claim that land. And the government can do it if they want," she said.

“I’m honored to be appointed alongside such an intelligent and experienced group of colleagues” stated Dr. Dlott, SureHarvest CEO. “It’s a privilege to serve on the panel to advise and assist Secretary Ross in her commitment to strengthen California agriculture’s positive impacts on the economy and environment.”

Jeff Dlott (1992) and his company, SureHarvest, have been awarded a six figure grant by the USDA to help crop owners measure the success of their sustainability practices. The grant allows SureHarvest to continue its work developing a way for companies to identify and track sustainable processes and materials in their supply chain and do in field pilot testing, said Jeff Dlott, founding president of SureHarvest. The grant will be split with SureHarvest partners and makes up less than 10 percent of the company's revenues.