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Agriculture is more affected by climate change, it contributes more to GHG emissions, but it also offers more development opportunities in a climate change perspective than other sectors. This chapter asks whether the food value chain is climate change resilient under the present international regulatory framework. The research hypothesis is that a legal analysis of the issues at stake has to include the specific situation of weak states, small farmers and poor consumers. This is a still under-researched issue of policy space and tools coherence both at national and international levels. Climate change affects poverty, hunger and malnutrition. Hence mitigation and adaptation strategies need to consider other issues including production subsidies, productivity, non-food uses of agricultural land such as biofuels for local production and for exports, biotechnology, standards and labelling, carbon taxation and emission trading, water and fish, risk insurance and export restrictions, food stockpiles, mitigation of various vulnerabilities, gender, local and international migration and violence. From a regulatory perspective the relevant question is whether the present policies and tools promoting food production, investment and trade are good enough to cope with the additional challenge of global warming. This overview shows that today’s regulatory deficits are anything but climate change-resilient. The presently non-negotiable deficiencies of several WTO rules, and the lack of stringent disciplines for trade-distorting farm and fish subsidies, jeopardize climate action for agriculture. There is a need to review regional trade agreements and sectorial agreements including on energy, aviation, water management, shipping, fishing and migration – even the preferential treatment of climate-friendly products and processing methods from developing countries. Changes are also required for international investment treaties. Foreign direct investment in agriculture is under-regulated and over-protected. However, required first and foremost are multilaterally agreed climate-smart best farming and processing practices. These standards would then need to be enshrined in a credible multilateral environmental agreement, and protected against legal challenges in the WTO, similarly to internationally agreed food safety standards. This exercise quite possibly implies some new and climate-specific trade and investment rules for agriculture, water and aquaculture. Absent such new or modified rules, climate change – if it continues according to scientific forecasts – might marginalize some of the net food-importing developing countries even more, and drive poor smallholders out of business even faster. Key Words: climate change, agriculture, trade, investment, development, WTO

The evidence of climate change is now irrefutable. African ecosystems are already being affected by climate change, which will further amplify existing stress on water availability in Africa, with strong adverse effects on food security. Kenya faces climate change impacts in its development efforts, particularly in the vulnerability of smallholder, mainly rain-fed, agriculture, to climate variability. The chapter examines the role of the law in framing appropriate tools that can be deployed for use by the government and farmers in order to coordinate adaptation strategies in a manner that builds resilience, and enhances adaptive capacity. In particular, the argument is that it is necessary to pursue mainstreaming of climate change strategies into agriculture law and policy priorities, in order to ensure that from national policy to land use choices by farmers, adaptation is internalized as an imperative for agriculture decision making. Key Words: climate change, adaptation, agriculture, economy, land use, extension

Especially in the context of agriculture and local land use, control strategies are critical considerations in a climate change response. At no other level of governance are considerations of home and community identity more pervasive. At no other level of governance are the felt necessities more personal. And at no other level of governance do the citizens feel more empowered. And yet, reliance on land use controls for resiliency purposes is a complicated task. The pervasive and perennial problems that confront local governments as they turn their attention to the impacts of climate change involve financial ability to implement a vision of resiliency, authority to act within a federalist system, and community commitment on an issue that retains enough political controversy to call into question the police power justification for action. Key Words: agriculture, local, zoning, land use, planning, community

Within the broader context of climate change, the recent rapid expansion of extractive fossil fuel industries (such as coal and unconventional gas) in agricultural communities throughout Australia has raised significant concerns over agricultural production capacity and food security. With many new coal and gas developments proposed either on or within close proximity to agriculturally productive land, both atmospheric impacts as well as direct land conversion have catalysed new and complicated land use conflicts, which existing regulatory frameworks have failed to resolve. Drawing upon a case study from the North West area of the state of New South Wales in Australia, this chapter examines conflict over agricultural land in the context of global climate change. It focuses particularly on regulatory reforms to better manage land use conflict, but finds that attempts at reform have thus far enjoyed little success in resolving land use disputes. Using an environmental justice lens, the chapter explores how community capacity to participate effectively in land use decision making was further constrained by reform efforts. By prioritising the broader economic benefits of extractive development, the values and views of agricultural communities were marginalised and discounted, serving to intensify opposition to development and entrenching broad-scale social conflict. The chapter concludes that the complex issue of agricultural land use conflict requires governance approaches that are grounded in principles of environmental justice. Greater attention to the distribution of environmental risks and harms, and the incorporation of mechanisms to ensure equal treatment in decision-making processes, will ultimately strengthen the capacity of agricultural communities to respond to environmental threats such as climate change. Key Words: agricultural land use conflict, environmental justice