Climate-smart agriculture

Increasingly unpredictable weather and extreme weather incidents mean that farmers are regularly faced with high yield losses. Agriculture itself is caught in a double bind: the sector as a whole contributes over 10% to global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it needs to produce sufficient food to feed the growing world population. Building on evidence-based knowledge, Wageningen Environmental Research offers the agricultural sector ways to make farming both more climate-resilient and climate-friendly, while achieving sufficient yields.

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We devise innovative ways to address these problems, and offer a wide range of services to enable farmers, agri-food businesses and governments to adopt climate-smart agriculture.

Supporting early adopters

Transitioning to climate-smart agriculture (CSA) involves farmers, agri-food business, governments and consumers. Wageningen Environmental Research supports early adopters of technological innovations who are looking to make their farming businesses climate resilient and energy neutral. One example is vertical farming, which not only reduces the amount of land space needed, but enables year-round cultivation to take place.

Context-based packages

Wageningen Environmental Research also develops context-based packages that bundle our wide range of expertise. We offer technical advice, for example on water-use efficient irrigation technologies and soil improvement, and economic advice on business models, investment risk reduction and improving financing prospects.

Social dimension

Climate-smart agriculture also includes a social dimension, which we tackle by supporting constructive dialogue between stakeholders and learning processes about new practices.

  • Community building
  • Coaching sessions on becoming climate-friendly