Climate- smart agriculture.#Cop22.

The world is faced with the task of feeding the projected 9 billion populace by 2050,this must be achieved by increasing food production through smart agricultural practices withoout distrupting the ecosystem by putting more pressure on available land and other resources. The race to ensure food security must be achieved by improved agricultural practices,thus smart agricultural interventions are important.The route to smart agriculture is diverse but can be broadly categorized into the following : 1) animal husbandry practices that will reduce the green house emissions,this can be achieved by addition of some feed additives especially in cattle to reduce methane emissions. Cattle has been identified as a major culprit in the climate change. see 2) Improved methods of production through waste reduction: Waste generated in the field of production from farm to table has an effect on the climate itself. When more food loss or waste is recorded along the agricultural chain,this tends to spike the carbon print in that zone. Agritech can be employed in this area where innovative methods are used to preserve food,process excess into other value-adding products and effective handling of products to prevent waste. Waste generated can also be further processed into fertilizers or can be passed to an anaerobic digester to produce electricity. Food services can also be organized to ensure that excess food,left-overs and misshaped fruits and vegetables can be boxed and sent to regions where food is needed instead of sending the food to landfills,which will heat up our environment. A school of thought believes that what the world needs is not more food,but how to prevent waste and channel excess food to those that are in need. more The use of improved seeds,biotechnology is also an initiative that has a place in smart agriculture, instead of farming more land that is obviously not available,improved seeds can help achieve the goal of food security as the harvest will be faster which will be bigger improved versions of what we are used to. Farming more animals on smaller pastures will not be necessary as biodiversity will play a role. The use of genetically proven breeds through genetic selection and improvement,these breeds dont even need to be shipped to various countries rather good artificial insemination centers will provide the reproductive services. Smart agricultural practices that ensures better feed conversion ration in the animals will promote growth of these animals,where less feed is consumed,but greater weight gain is recorded because the feed is properly utilized. One of such practices will be alternative castration in boars with the use of IMPROVEST,see The efficiency gained by allowing boars to grow longer as intact males before IMPROVEST is administered has the potential for an incremental reduction in the carbon footprint, a study showed that if half the male pigs in the U.S. were raised using IMPROVEST, it would be like removing the CO2 equivalent of 190,000 cars for a year from roads. see