Goal

Sustainable agriculture[8]

Interlinkages

Adoption of sustainable agricultural practices[9]

Interlinkages

Targets

By 2030, chemical inputs, herbicides and pesticides are largely replaced with organic and biological alternatives. Cultivated crop strains are diversified, as are production techniques and the mix of agricultural producers.

Sustainable intensification:

• Prevent zero net land degradation in wild areas and increase production on existing arable land;

• Restore land and soil quality and manage land and soil resources sustainably; Ensure that food production can meet growing demand and that, in line with the vision of the Strategic Plan of the Convention on Biological Diversity, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used and that ecosystem services are maintained;

• Reduce biodiversity loss due to agricultural activities.

Interspersed natural areas should be protected and restored as sources of pollination, pest control and soil fertility. Best management practices reduce erosion by 90 per cent and nitrogen runoff by 50 per cent or more.

Restoring soils and degraded land:

• Restore land and soil quality and manage land and soil resources sustainably.

Food for export is secondary to food for local consumption.

Expanding resource efficiency techniques:

• Invest in nutrient use efficiency research;

• Promote connections between water, energy and land.

The local ecological knowledge of indigenous peoples and traditional and local communities is utilized to identify resilient crops and cultivation practices that provide maximum protection against climate change.

Reducing the yield gap for smallholders:

• Invest in extension and knowledge sharing that assists in scaling farmers’ adoption of good farming practices, and in planning for resilience to climate change and potential yield losses;

• Develop a network of agri-input dealers as farmers’ main point of contact for inputs and advice, in order to promote extension services and knowledge transfer;

• Governments need to invest in agricultural education programs to train agronomists, extension workers and agro-input dealers.