Climate-Smart Agriculture: Indigenous Environmental Network Climate Justice Program Series
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The Indigenous Environmental Network Climate (IEN) Justice Program Briefing Series is a result of IEN’s Internship Program. IEN is pleased to work with three masters students from the Environmental Policy and Sustainable Management (EPSM) program of The New School, based in Manhattan, New York City, NY: Elisa Soto-Danseco, Nam Pham and Joshua Witchger.
As the impacts of climate change worsen, Indigenous peoples and small farming communities are being targeted by the lure of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA). CSA casts a wide net, including land-use practices, limiting crop selection, and agricultural products that are presented as solutions to the food and climate crisis. A deeper look, however, reveals that CSA is merely the latest effort by agribusiness, financial institutions and governments to maximize profits and monopolize control over food systems and Mother Earth.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) reinforces structural hierarchy and emboldens dominant forms of power, while attempting to erase Traditional Indigenous Knowledge.
CSA will use agriculture and soil offsets in carbon markets, which fail to keep fossil fuels in the ground.
The climate-smart agriculture agenda co-opts genuine regenerative practices and corrupts efforts to meaningfully address climate change.
Climate-smart agriculture expands colonial frontiers and prioritizes “expert” knowledge.
There is no excuse for the violence of industrial farming, land grabbing and large-scale destructive agricultural practices.