We’ve got a new climate smart agriculture training curriculum in development, and we announced it at Climate Week in New York City last Thursday.
Louise Buck was in New York for Climate Week NYC with the Cornell Climate Smart Farming Program (CSF) and the Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture (GACSA). She contributed to a day-long workshop led by the two organizations, called Catalyzing Action towards Climate-Smart Agriculture, that brought together 65 professionals from international organizations, NGOs, governments, universities, businesses and farmer organizations around the world to share information and network. Focal activity included a panel on ‘Enhancing Metrics and the Business Case for CSA’ and another on ‘Scaling up CSA Tools and Practices’. Panel presentations showcased cutting-edge research and applied projects intended to help farmers achieve the goals of CSA as soon as possible.
Introducing the Training Curriculum for Climate Smart Agriculture Planning
In the “tools and practices” panel Louise introduced the Training Curriculum for Climate Smart Agriculture Planning that EcoAgriculture Partners is developing together with the Resilient Agriculture program of USDA’s Foreign Agriculture Service, USDA California Climate Hub, UC Davis and Cornell University. The curriculum is designed to help sub-national decision-makers operationalize national climate smart agriculture policies by putting CSA policies to work in landscapes and farms.
In highlighting the goals and scope of the curriculum, Louise stressed it is oriented toward building the knowledge, skills and values of CSA leaders that enable them to facilitate CSA planning processes that link landscapes and farms, and develop plans that can bring about the multiple desired impacts of CSA. The modular structure of the curriculum is meant to enable a training team to select and tailor content they consider most relevant to the programs, audiences, training needs and learning objectives they seek to address in conducting a particular course on CSA planning.
6 modules and 23 lessons
Learn more about the curriculum by browsing Louise’s short slide deck for the “Catalyzing Action towards Climate-Smart Agriculture” event.
What’s next for the curriculum
Draft versions of the modules and lessons presently are under review. The curriculum development team expects to receive feedback and finalize the training material and facilitator’s guide within the next two months. The team expects to pilot test the curriculum in two countries early in 2019, and further adapt the materials accordingly.
More
Download a flyer on the curriculum.
Read more about our work on Climate Smart Landscapes.
This project is funded by the United States Department of Agriculture.