Climate-smart agriculture is good for business: A framework for establishing the business case for climate-smart agriculture investments

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) makes financial sense for businesses. Governments are increasingly holding the private sector responsible for their role in climate change impacts. Extreme weather events are incredibly costly for businesses. This is particularly true in agriculture, which relies heav...

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Autores principales: Nowak, Andreea C., Steward, Peter R., Namoi, Nictor, Mayzelle, Megan, Kamau, Hannah N., Lamanna, Christine, Rosenstock, Todd S.
Formato: Artículo preliminar
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/109033
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author Nowak, Andreea C.
Steward, Peter R.
Namoi, Nictor
Mayzelle, Megan
Kamau, Hannah N.
Lamanna, Christine
Rosenstock, Todd S.
author_browse Kamau, Hannah N.
Lamanna, Christine
Mayzelle, Megan
Namoi, Nictor
Nowak, Andreea C.
Rosenstock, Todd S.
Steward, Peter R.
author_facet Nowak, Andreea C.
Steward, Peter R.
Namoi, Nictor
Mayzelle, Megan
Kamau, Hannah N.
Lamanna, Christine
Rosenstock, Todd S.
author_sort Nowak, Andreea C.
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) makes financial sense for businesses. Governments are increasingly holding the private sector responsible for their role in climate change impacts. Extreme weather events are incredibly costly for businesses. This is particularly true in agriculture, which relies heavily on favorable weather conditions. CSA practices and technologies are central to the transformative changes necessary to maintain the stability—and profitability—of the food system in the face of climate change. Where robust information on the benefits, costs, and risks of interventions is missing or incomplete, would-be investors, including donors, governments, businesses, and farmers, remain uninformed of the potentially massive dividends climate-smart investments could offer. This dearth of viable business models ultimately hinders the mainstreaming of productive, climate-resilient, low-emissions agriculture. Robust business-case analyses of CSA could accelerate the scaling of promising, profitable technologies by transparently and rigorously laying out the monetary and nonmonetary values of performance. We use existing data from Evidence for Resilient Agriculture (ERA, previously known as The Compendium) to develop a general framework for establishing the business case for specific farm-level agricultural technologies. The framework focuses on the costs, benefits, and risks of adoption of CSA by smallholder farmers. We illustrate the application of the framework with two case studies in Kenya and Malawi to highlight opportunities, challenges, and lessons learned from building business cases for CSA. These give potential investors the tools to screen and select appropriate technologies and help de-risk investments where data are few and far between.
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spelling CGSpace1090332024-01-23T12:04:17Z Climate-smart agriculture is good for business: A framework for establishing the business case for climate-smart agriculture investments Nowak, Andreea C. Steward, Peter R. Namoi, Nictor Mayzelle, Megan Kamau, Hannah N. Lamanna, Christine Rosenstock, Todd S. climate-smart agriculture resilience enterprises productivity agriculture scale data smallholders food security climate change Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) makes financial sense for businesses. Governments are increasingly holding the private sector responsible for their role in climate change impacts. Extreme weather events are incredibly costly for businesses. This is particularly true in agriculture, which relies heavily on favorable weather conditions. CSA practices and technologies are central to the transformative changes necessary to maintain the stability—and profitability—of the food system in the face of climate change. Where robust information on the benefits, costs, and risks of interventions is missing or incomplete, would-be investors, including donors, governments, businesses, and farmers, remain uninformed of the potentially massive dividends climate-smart investments could offer. This dearth of viable business models ultimately hinders the mainstreaming of productive, climate-resilient, low-emissions agriculture. Robust business-case analyses of CSA could accelerate the scaling of promising, profitable technologies by transparently and rigorously laying out the monetary and nonmonetary values of performance. We use existing data from Evidence for Resilient Agriculture (ERA, previously known as The Compendium) to develop a general framework for establishing the business case for specific farm-level agricultural technologies. The framework focuses on the costs, benefits, and risks of adoption of CSA by smallholder farmers. We illustrate the application of the framework with two case studies in Kenya and Malawi to highlight opportunities, challenges, and lessons learned from building business cases for CSA. These give potential investors the tools to screen and select appropriate technologies and help de-risk investments where data are few and far between. 2020-08-18 2020-08-18T22:05:16Z 2020-08-18T22:05:16Z Working Paper https://hdl.handle.net/10568/109033 en Open Access application/pdf CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security Nowak AC, Steward P, Namoi N, Mayzelle M, Kamau H, Lamanna C, Rosenstock TS. 2020. Climate-smart agriculture is good for business: A framework for establishing the business case for climate-smart agriculture investments. CCAFS Working paper No.316. Wageningen, the Netherlands: CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).
spellingShingle climate-smart agriculture
resilience
enterprises
productivity
agriculture
scale
data
smallholders
food security
climate change
Nowak, Andreea C.
Steward, Peter R.
Namoi, Nictor
Mayzelle, Megan
Kamau, Hannah N.
Lamanna, Christine
Rosenstock, Todd S.
Climate-smart agriculture is good for business: A framework for establishing the business case for climate-smart agriculture investments
title Climate-smart agriculture is good for business: A framework for establishing the business case for climate-smart agriculture investments
title_full Climate-smart agriculture is good for business: A framework for establishing the business case for climate-smart agriculture investments
title_fullStr Climate-smart agriculture is good for business: A framework for establishing the business case for climate-smart agriculture investments
title_full_unstemmed Climate-smart agriculture is good for business: A framework for establishing the business case for climate-smart agriculture investments
title_short Climate-smart agriculture is good for business: A framework for establishing the business case for climate-smart agriculture investments
title_sort climate smart agriculture is good for business a framework for establishing the business case for climate smart agriculture investments
topic climate-smart agriculture
resilience
enterprises
productivity
agriculture
scale
data
smallholders
food security
climate change
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/109033
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