Towards Climate Just Agriculture: How IOs Can Address Our Environmental Crisis

• In Event: International Environmental Action

Abstract

Agriculture, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is responsible for 11% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (2021). Estimates that include processing and transportation, find that our global food system contributes over 30% (Crippa et al, 2021). In response, international institutions such as the World Bank (WB) have launched and implemented initiatives to develop what has become known as “climate smart agriculture” around the world. Such initiatives include developing new varieties of seeds, improving production techniques that rely less on chemicals, as well as experimenting with new crop rotations and grazing practices for livestock. Meanwhile, the WB has received an onslaught of criticisms. Whether for imposing western-style economic norms on developing countries (Fergusion 1994), failing to incorporate the demands of marginalized people (Bergeron 2003; Lewis and Söderbergh 2020), or lacking a democratic structure (Glenn 2008), the WB has been considered an actor that creates more problems than it solves. As a result, the WB has initiated various reforms, including increasing participation (World Bank 2011) and foregrounding environmental concerns within institution’s agricultural projects (Goldman 2004; Fay 2012). In this paper, I evaluate these reforms with respect to the WB’s efforts at promoting “climate smart agriculture.” Highlighting the mixed record of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) particularly, I explore how championing neoliberal principles of limited government and individual entrepreneurship have depoliticized markets and unintentionally made already vulnerable people live in even more precarious conditions. Not writing off the work of the international organizations such as the World Bank, I document how “climate smart agriculture” exists as what I call a “bridge discourse” that could be altered to include additional elements. Such additions exist as part of what I call "climate just agriculture," which as I explain, includes changes to free trade agreements and international development projects that would focus on providing financing for local markets and infrastructure, improving competition, and subsidizing small and medium-scale enterprises as ways to promote sustainable development and address climate change. I illustrate how amending “climate smart agriculture,” as well as working to reform free trade agreements and international organizations, is possible now more than ever as the rules of our international political economy are being rethought by governments around the world. Such calls for change dovetail with widespread social movement agitation that has been developing for decades in the Global North and South. My work analyzes how international institutions have changed over time, and continue to evolve, particularly concerning the role of agriculture within our ongoing global climate crisis.

Author

• Anthony R. Pahnke, San Francisco State University