Project Drawdown: https://drawdown.org/
Along with many other NGOs, our most recent work here at Earth Links has been focused on introducing The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) to smallholder rice farmers around the world and, for Earth Links more specifically, to give them better access to labor-saving, injury reducing low-cost tools that these resource-limited farmers need. They can then take advantage of the opportunities that SRI can give them to provide food security through increased yields and increased income stability.
Earth Links is very excited to see that Project Drawdown has placed “Sustainable Intensification for Smallholders” as number 10 in their table of climate solutions.
Their criteria: “this solution involves the adoption of sustainable intensification practices that increase the yield of smallholder farmers (both men and women), while increasing their socioeconomic conditions.”
They have defined four annual cropping solutions: Conservation Agriculture, Regenerative Annual Cropping, Improved Rice Production, and System of Rice Intensification.
“We investigated two low-methane rice production solutions: Improved Rice Production with techniques suitable to both small- and large-scale operations, and The System of Rice Intensification, currently limited to smallholders. These 2 rice solutions replace conventional paddy rice production. Given that many rice farming methods are long-entrenched customs, change requires helping farmers see what results are possible, cultivating necessary knowledge and skills, and implementing incentives that make new methods compelling.”
Soy Crop grown with Conservation Agriculture Principles. No-Till Practice; you can see the cover crop that remains on the ground, which greatly reduces water loss due to evaporation and provides nutrients to the soil.
Who or what is Project Drawdown?
Project Drawdown is the world’s leading resource for climate solutions. They study and report on the leading sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and the leading solutions to counter-balance and/or eliminate them. Most of their calculations target 2050 as a realistic date to see actual reversing of the earth’s warming trends if as many solutions as possible are adopted by humans.
What is ‘Drawdown’?
Drawdown is the future point in time when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline. This is the point when we begin the process of stopping further climate change and averting potentially catastrophic warming. It is a critical turning point for life on Earth.
To learn more about Project Drawdown and their mission:
“Climate change is the defining challenge of our generation. It affects virtually every aspect of life, from what we eat and how we move to where political unrest finds its most volatile flashpoints.
For many, it’s nothing but gloom and doom. For Project Drawdown, it’s an opportunity.”
- https://drawdown.org/
- https://drawdown.org/solutions/table-of-solutions
- https://drawdown.org/solutions/system-of-rice-intensification
- https://drawdown.org/get-involved
For more information about the System of Rice Intensification, go to the site of our partner, SRI-Rice at Cornell University. They are the leading research and resource site for SRI in the world.
http://sri.ciifad.cornell.edu/