Farmers in developing countries will have to face the main impacts of climate change: extreme weather events like tornadoes, floods and droughts. Unreliable rainfall and rising temperatures will threaten food supplies, crops and livestock. At the same time, farming households will lose the ability to cope with these stresses. Putting trees into agriculture and actively managing them in the landscape is a way  to buffer climate risk and protect the ecosystems that support poor farmers. Cheik Mbow, Senior Scientist, Climate Change and Development of the World Agroforestry Centre, will run a session on climate change at the Congress, with his colleague Todd Rosenstock. “Adaptation with agroforestry is seen in this session as potential response to the adverse effects of climate change but also as a viable option to respond to and reduce the anticipated negative impacts with trees,” he said.

Many agroforestry options can be pursued depending to the time period, the scale, the actors, the expected outcomes and available resources. There remains a wide range of research to be done to answer the fundamental questions about the benefits and challenges of adapting agroforestry to climate change. “We require a renewed effort to develop approaches capable of generating comprehensive and generalizable knowledge about these systems,” said Mbow. “To manage the diversity of approaches and case studies, this session will explore the communities’ ability to use agroforestry to adapt to climate change.”

The six scientists who will be talking during the session will be answering questions like: under what conditions can agroforestry systems contribute to the current well-being of the poor while enhancing their adaptive capacity? Are all components and processes relevant for understanding and managing benefit flows from agroforestry in changing climate and agricultural landscape included in current policies and development agendas? What are the current challenges for scientists and developers to better specify the adaptation strategies related to agroforestry in multifunctional and changing agricultural landscapes?

The answers will contribute to the road map that the Congress will produce for future action.