SLU researcher Marcos Lana shared expertise at COP30

Marcos Lana is back at the office after his trip to Brazil. The talks he gave at the UN climate change conference (COP30) had the titles Scaling up climate adaptation and nature preservation strategies in agriculture and Family-based agriculture and alternative food systems in a changing world.

The theory behind the first talk is that climate adaptation and nature preservations in agriculture can be scaled up according to a number of principles regarding recycling, input reduction, soil health, animal health, biodiversity, synergy, economic diversification and co-creation of knowledge.

– It is important to emphasize that this is about principles, not rules or guidelines. We work with principles rather than rules because different agricultural fields have different biophysical conditions. We want input reduction, soil health etcetera, but the way we promote the principles changes from place to place, Marcos Lana explains.

At the COP30 he also talked about how a concrete transition to a more sustainable food system could be achieved.

– At a first level we increase efficiency, so that for example less synthetic fertiliser are needed. Next, we replace conventional inputs with more sustainable alternatives. The next step is redesigning the farming system, followed by reconnecting consumers and farmers to finally build a food system where people are willing to pay a fair price for better-produced food, Marcos Lana says.

Agroecology has gained a lot of interest the last years. Marcos Lana is the secretary general and one of the founders of the organisation Agroecology Europe.

– I probably got the invitation to give the talks at COP30 thanks to my competence in crop modelling and climate change in agriculture. Agroecology is sort of a combination of these things, he says.

The audience for the first talk included a broad mix of politicians, citizens, movement activists and scientists. The second talk was for the government negotiators at the Planetary Science Pavilion - COP 30.

– For the second talk I needed a so-called blue zone pass to get into the UN-managed conference area where the actual negotiations took place.

Marcos Lana and his colleagues published a paper some years ago that still attracts a lot of attention (Agroecology and the design of climate change-resilient farming systems), and has served as a basis for several discussions at science and policy level. He also has two projects related to the promotion of agroecology using Living Labs in Sweden.

– Small-scale farms can support alternative food systems that combine different ecosystems and social services. Large, specialised farms, are very productive, but little deviations from optimal conditions can cause such systems to collapse. Small-scale agriculture is more climate change-resilient because it relies on diversification. By integrating crops and livestock in such a way that they can benefit from each other, small farms can create positive synergies like improved soil health through crop rotation and natural nitrogen fixation. The same principles can be adopted by large farms too, and this is happening. These systems focus on quality and ecological balance rather than competing on volume and low margins. Shorter value chains also give products an identity, allowing consumers to connect food to its origin and enabling small-scale farmers to receive fairer value for sustainably produced products, Marcos Lana says.