Even with abundant evidence of the urgent need for action on climate change mitigation, there are still those who consider mitigation strategies a burden. In the agricultural sector, climate change mitigation calls for changing some agricultural and resource management practices and technologies and often requires additional investment. However, there is an opportunity in agriculture for net beneft streams from a variety of zero- or low-cost mitigation opportunities ranging from agroforestry practices and restoration of degraded soils to zero-till and other land-management practices. Momentum has been generated to incorporate agriculture into carbon markets, potentially allowing smallholder farmers to access beneft streams from such transactions. However, who will receive the benefts from mitigation funds by, for example, increasing carbon stocks or reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from land, will depend on the way different types of property rights are defned and dealt with in the upcoming climate change negotiations in Copenhagen.
