MAXIMISING CROP yields on existing farms in an effort to stem rampant land clearance in developing countries may become financially untenable in the long-term, researchers say. Researchers from Singapore, Switzerland and the United Kingdom modelled the long-term consequences of this ‘agricultural intensification’ on future conservation costs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In the DRC, which has some of the largest remaining forests in the world, the researchers found that a new agricultural intensification and conservation programme could double or triple cassava and maize yields by introducing disease-resistant plant varieties, including fertiliser use and improving farming practices to spare other areas for conservation. “On paper, [agricultural] intensification has the potential to increase incomes, exports, food security and conservation,” says Jacob Phelps, a doctorate student at the National University of Singapore who co-led the research with Luis Roman Carrasco, an assistant professor at the same university. But while the technique leads to immediate benefits for both farmers and conservationists, it also involved significant long-term trade-offs. Currently, initiatives such as the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) use financial incentives to encourage people in tropical developing countries to participate in agricultural intensification. Because protecting forests is such a cost-efficient strategy for reducing global carbon emissions, the researchers say, paying farmers previously involved in ‘slash-and-burn’ agriculture (the clearing by burning of forest lands for agricultural production) to adopt intensive farming has become a leading climate change mitigation strategy. But REDD+ incentives would cost more over time, the study finds. As a farm becomes more productive, its value will increase and thus rents will increase, according to various scenarios modelled by the researchers. The researchers warn that conservation expenditure will have to dramatically increase to compete with future changes in agricultural practices. Hence, the study illustrates that contemporary policies such as REDD+ tend to focus on short-term conservation and on improving the livelihoods of poor communities around forested areas, but risk overlooking on long-term conservation. Policymakers may also need to find non-financial benefits that promote conservation, such as policies that do not prescribe cash payments but instead focus on livelihood developments, the researchers note. The authors say the model scenarios based on the DRC can be applied elsewhere but it must be recalibrated to each particular region. In South-East Asia, for example, slash-and-burn agriculture has typically been the preserve of poor subsistence farmers, but the authors note that the rapid shift towards high-value cash crops such as palm oil and rubber may spur deforestation despite environmental regulations and financial incentives. “Increases in the cost of conservation in places like Indonesia could be significantly greater than we discuss in the context of the DRC, because of the high value of oil palm compared to lower-value cassava and maize we modelled in the DRC,” Carrasco says. J Damien Platten, a molecular biologist at the International Rice Research Institute, says: “Slash and burn is a traditional way of life in many places, yet the model does not account for motivations other than strict economic ones. Intensive agriculture may make little difference to these people”. (SciDev)
Nepal to generate electricity from waste
NEPAL IS looking at waste-to-energy (WtE) technologies to address its huge energy deficit and also manage growing urban and industrial waste. Half of Nepal’s households are off the national grid while supply shortfalls and interrupted power cause industries losses worth 60 billion Nepali rupees (US$ 700 million) annually. Last month, the ‘Waste-to-Energy Bazaar 2013’ initiative launched by the government’s Alternative Energy Promotion Centre (AEPC) and the World Bank awarded three proposals for biologically or thermally converting biomass into gas that can fuel generators. Biomass sources identified by the proposals include human faeces, cattle manure, chicken litter, agricultural waste and organic municipal solid waste (MSW). AEPC assistant director Samir Thapa explained that the initiative adds an urban dimension to the earlier focus on rural renewable energy projects that have resulted in over 250,000 small biogas plants coming up across rural Nepal. “This is not just exciting; it is the way to go in a country without fossil fuels,” Anil Chitrakar, social entrepreneur and co-founder of the Himalayan Climate Initiative, said. One project estimated a generation potential of five megawatts of electricity from the 300 tonnes of MSW produced every day in Kathmandu alone. Almost 1,630 tonnes of MSW are generated across Nepal daily. The first prize went to a proposal to generate 1.25 megawatt-hours of electricity and 1,000 tonnes of fertiliser from waste produced by 200,000 birds in three poultry farms, using technology proven in Bangladesh. “We are trying to bring in new technologies from neighbouring countries that will be suited to our localised context,” added Thapa, who hopes to have projects running within three years. India already has an installed WtE capacity of 211 megawatts from 22 projects, earning carbon credits through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol. China has 100 CDM projects. One challenge in Nepal will be to sensitise bankers — who are used to financing motorcycles, cars or houses — on the financial viability of WtE projects, said Chitrakar. “The policy landscape also needs to be developed since regulations that currently govern waste and energy are separate,” said Thapa. The AEPC is now trying to incorporate WtE plans into a draft renewable energy policy and a renewable energy subsidy policy that were endorsed in March to support institutional and community biogas systems. (SciDev)
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