The United States is a founding member of the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture. As part of its commitment to promoting climate smart agriculture around the world, the U.S. government supports the following initiatives:
- In the United States, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) manages seven "Climate Hubs" around the country to deliver information to farmers, ranchers and forest landowners to help them adapt to climate change and weather variability.
- The Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases, to which the United States contributes, aims to deepen and broaden mitigation research through collaboration and data sharing.
- Feed the Future, the U.S. government's global hunger and food security initiative, focuses on agriculture-led development to spur broad-based economic growth that can reduce hunger, poverty, and under nutrition. It is helping mitigate risks of climate change by supporting smallholder farmers in producing more and better quality foods, improving access to new tools and technologies, and building resilience while using land, energy, water and other inputs more efficiently.
- Feed the Future is pairing American ingenuity and expertise with some of the best and brightest minds across the globe through its 24 Feed the Future Innovation Labs, a unique network supported by more than 60 top U.S. colleges and universities along with many partner country research and educational institutions.
- The United States helped create the Climate and Clean Air Coalition on Short-Lived Pollutants, housed at the UN Environment Program, which includes an action-oriented Agriculture Initiative to address methane and black carbon emissions associated with open agricultural burning, paddy rice production, and livestock management.
- The U.S. Global Climate Change Initiative provides climate-related assistance to more than 50 developing countries. Programs, like the SERVIR climate data hubs, help developing countries build the critical capacities they need to increase resilience to changes in climate, to protect lives and livelihoods, and to promote low-carbon growth and development.
The United States also supports multilateral funds and organizations that provide dedicated financing to agricultural development in developing countries.
- The United States is the largest donor to the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, which has provided $912 million in grant financing to support agricultural development in the world's poorest countries. About one-third of the current portfolio, or roughly $300 million, focuses on climate adaptation and mitigation activities.
- The United States is also the largest contributor to the International Fund for Agricultural Development, which finances climate smart agriculture in the poorest and most vulnerable agricultural communities.
- U.S. support to the international Climate Investment Funds (CIF), including the Pilot Program on Climate Resilience (PPCR), helps the most vulnerable countries protect their economies and citizens from the negative effects of climate change. Agriculture and land management are one of the key sectors supported by the PPCR. The Forest Investment Program (FIP) is providing more than $600 million for activities to address reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation – often with significant agriculture components – in Brazil, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Indonesia, Laos, Mexico, and Peru.
- In partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency and a range of private and non-profit partners, USDA has created a new Food Waste Challenge to encourage people to find new ways to reduce food loss and waste, to recover unneeded, wholesome food that can help feed those in need, and to recycle wasted food as much as possible. Food is the single largest component of municipal solid waste going to landfills – and those landfills are the third largest source of methane. By reducing the amount of food we toss into the trash, we can help reduce these potent greenhouse gas emissions.
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