With all eyes on the climate deliberations in Copenhagen, it is more important than ever to find innovative ways of reducing agriculture's contribution to global climate change. The livestock industry in particular has helped feed the world but at a significant cost to the environment, including generating large emissions of greenhouse gas.

One promising solution is to substitute fish production for meat production. But to do so we must ensure that the "blue revolution" in ocean fish farming does not lead to the same suite of environmental problems that have accompanied the "green revolution" for land-based agriculture. Americans' appetite for fish continues to grow and is increasingly met by a year-round supply of fresh fish imported into our marketplace. Yet few Americans know where their fish comes from or how it was produced. Just as most chickens, pigs and cows are raised in tightly confined, intensive operations, so too are many fish.

Right now in the United States we have an opportunity to help ensure that the emerging marine aquaculture sector meets both human and environmental needs. This week, Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) will introduce in the House of Representatives a bill called the National Sustainable Offshore Aquaculture Act that addresses the potential threats of poorly regulated fish farming in U.S. ocean waters. These threats include spread of disease and parasites from farmed to wild fish; discharge of effluents into surrounding waters; misuse of antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals and chemicals; escape of farmed fish into wild fish habitat; killing of marine mammals and sharks that might prey on ocean farm cages; and reliance on use of wild-caught fish in aquaculture feeds, which could deplete food supplies for other marine life and the aquaculture industry itself over time.

These environmental impacts have been evident in many other countries with intensive marine fish farming. The recent collapse of salmon aquaculture in Chile, where industry expansion was prioritized over environmental protection, is the most glaring example. Salmon, one of Chile's leading exports, has suffered a major blow as a result of poor regulation and environmentally unsound management. Tens of thousands of people are now jobless in southern Chile, where the salmon farming industry once boomed.

There are three critical points to be made about the Capps bill. First, unlike previous attempts to legislate on fish farming at the national level, the bill would ensure that U.S. aquaculture adopts a science-based, precautionary approach that establishes a priority for the protection of wild fish and functional ecosystems. This approach is consistent with President Obama's recent call to develop a comprehensive and integrated plan to manage our ocean's many competing uses to ensure protection of vital ecosystem services in years to come.

Second, the Capps bill would preempt the emergence of ecologically risky, piecemeal regulation of ocean fish farming in different regions of the U.S. Efforts are already afoot in Hawaii, California, the Gulf of Mexico and New England to expand marine aquaculture without consistent standards to govern their environmental or social performance. If these piecemeal regional initiatives move forward, there will be little hope of creating a sustainable national policy for U.S. open-ocean aquaculture.

Finally, the Capps bill as currently written has a solid, long-term vision for the appropriate role of fish farming in sustainable ocean ecosystems and thus should win widespread support among environmental and fishing constituencies. It should also garner support from the more progressive end of the aquaculture industry that aspires to sustainable domestic fish production.

Previous federal bills introduced in 2005 and 2007 were fundamentally flawed -- and thus rightly criticized -- because they put the goal of aquaculture expansion far above that of environmental protection. Now, for the first time, a bill has been introduced that would demonstrably protect our ocean ecosystems, fishing communities and seafood consumers from the risks of poorly regulated open-ocean aquaculture.

Rep. Capps and her colleagues are to be commended. Now is the time for the new leadership in Washington -- at the White House and at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- to embrace this more science-based and precautionary approach to ensure a sustainable future for U.S. ocean aquaculture.

Sometimes in diplomacy what is not announced is more revealing than what is. Such is certainly the case in India's recent climate and energy negotiations with the US, as both countries prepare to head to global climate talks in Copenhagen. The occasion of Manmohan Singh's state visit to the US brought the announcement of a flurry of energy and climate-related initiatives. These initiatives were a combination of substance and political theatre, with potentially important initiatives on environmental and regulatory capacity-building and technology partnerships buried under a deep layer of bureaucratic niceties.

What was more noticed was what was not announced: any agreement for India to have a binding target for CO2 emissions reductions, something US and European environmentalists have long claimed is necessary as part of a global effort to stave off severe climate change. And while the Indian government has eventually announced a targeted reduction in what is known as "emissions intensity", CO2 emissions per unit of GDP, that wasn't a big stretch, given India's current annual efficiency improvements. Furthermore, Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh has made it abundantly clear in Parliament that such targets would be voluntary and not part of a binding international agreement.

With more than 60 world leaders in attendance, we can be assured that Copenhagen will not end in public failure. But the better question is whether the announced success in Copenhagen will have any practical meaning other than determining that diplomats can spin a "success" out of any actual events. Some Indian commentators have seemed to hope for a "success" of that sort - fretting about India being outmanoeuvred on the public stage by China and other developing countries that may be able to strike a more cooperative posture.

While from a tactical standpoint, such concerns are understandable (there is little reason for India to not commit to doing things it would like to do anyway, such as developing more efficient power plants or cars), from the perspective of actually taking leadership in addressing the climate problem, they mean little. In some ways, India is emulating the example of the US from the previous Kyoto climate round: while the US certainly should have been more proactive and engaged, at least the Americans had the integrity not to ratify an agreement that they couldn't keep. Many other nations could not claim that; they either missed their targets entirely, or resorted to bogus accounting tricks to meet their goals.

That India is showing its seriousness by not making climate commitments it won't live by should actually be seen as a mature and responsible decision, not an intransigent one. Does anyone think that China won't walk away from its promise if they have trouble meeting their emissions reduction goals?

As an alternative to the hot air that is likely to come out of Copenhagen, it is instructive to look at the potentially useful energy and climate agreements the US and India did sign during the PM's recent visit. The fact that clean energy was the second item listed behind security issues in the joint communiqué announced by Singh and Obama is clear evidence that both India and the US place a high importance on this aspect of their relationship.

India and the US announced numerous programmes, from the joint deployment of solar electricity in Indian cities to the strengthening of India's environmental regulatory and monitoring capacity - which is sure to be a critical step if India is to make serious and verifiable long-term commitments to emissions reductions. Perhaps most important, at least symbolically, was the announcement of joint scientific R&D work for renewable energy technologies. The Indo-US Clean Energy Research and Deployment Initiative, which promises joint development of new energy technologies and the development of a joint research centre with a public-private funding model, is one such initiative.

Ultimately, despite the bluster of diplomats in Delhi, Washington or Copenhagen, the solutions to the climate change problem must come through a technological revolution in the world's energy infrastructure. And it is here that India, with its burgeoning corps of bright young engineers, could make the biggest impact on climate change mitigation. Circumstances may not permit

India to lead the deal-making in Denmark, but if the Indian government gets serious about turning more of India's brightest young minds towards solving the clean energy problem, then India's contribution to solving the climate change conundrum may be significant indeed.

Solar-powered drip irrigation systems significantly enhance household incomes and nutritional intake of villagers in arid sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new study from Stanford's Program on Food Security and the Environment published in the January 14 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The study found that solar-powered pumps installed in remote villages in the West African nation of Benin provide a cost-effective way of delivering much-needed irrigation water, particularly during the long dry season.

"Our case study on women's farming groups in rural Benin revealed solar-powered drip irrigation – a clean, cost-competitive technology – significantly improved nutrition and food security as well as household incomes in one year," said lead author Jennifer Burney, a postdoctoral scholar with the Program on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford.

"Solar-powered drip irrigation systems break seasonal rainfall dependence, which typically limits farmers to a three- to six-month growing season, and support the production of diversified, high-value crops in rural Africa," Burney added.

She and her co-authors noted that much of sub-Saharan Africa's rural population is considered "food insecure," surviving on less than $1 per person per day. "And whereas most are engaged in agricultural production as their main livelihood, they still spend 50 to 80 percent of their income on food, and are often net consumers of food," they wrote.

Benin pilot project

In 2007, with support from Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment, Burney and her colleagues partnered with the nonprofit Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) on a pilot irrigation project in rural Benin. SELF financed and led the installation of three solar-powered drip irrigation systems in two villages in Benin's Kalalé district. Each system is used by a local women's agricultural group, which typically consists of 30 to 35 women who share the maintenance costs of the new irrigation technology.

"In Kalalé, 80 percent of the villagers live on less than $1.25 per day, which is representative of a number of poor, rural communities in Africa," said study co-author Rosamond L. Naylor, director of the Program on Food Security and the Environment and a professor of environmental Earth system science at Stanford.

In rural Benin, women and girls traditionally are responsible for hauling water by hand, often from very long distances. The solar-powered irrigation systems were designed to free them from hauling water to grow vegetable crops, particularly during the dry season.

To measure the impact of the solar-powered drip irrigation technology, the researchers monitored the agricultural groups using the new irrigation systems, as well as two "control" villages where women continued growing vegetables in traditional hand-watered gardens. Household surveys were conducted at the start of the project in November 2007 and again in November 2008.

Nutrition and income

The results were striking. "In just one year, we saw that photovoltaic drip irrigation systems had important implications for food and nutrition security, as well as household income," Burney said.

The three solar-powered irrigation systems supplied on average 1.9 metric tons of produce per month, including such high-valued crops as tomatoes, okra, peppers, eggplants and carrots. In villages irrigated with solar-powered systems, vegetable intake increased to three to five servings per day – the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Recommended Daily Allowance for vegetables – with most of the improvement taking place during the long dry season. In a world where 20 to 25 percent of global disease burden for children is due to malnutrition, such improvements could have a large impact over time, Burney said.

"Seventeen percent of project beneficiaries reported feeling less food insecure, demonstrating a remarkable effect on both year-round and seasonal food access," Naylor added.

As for household income, the authors found that women who used solar-powered irrigation became strong net producers of vegetables and earned extra income from sales, allowing them to significantly increase their purchases of high-protein food and other staples during the dry season.

Project benefits quickly spread to other community members, Burney said. For example, an elementary school curriculum was developed to help village children learn about the benefits of solar drip technology. "There was an overwhelming sense of pride in the new system by teachers, children and women participating in the farmer groups," she added.

Sustainability

Each solar-powered drip irrigation system is about 1.24 acres (0.5 hectare) in size, costs approximately $18,000 to install and requires about $5,750 a year to maintain, the authors said. Based on the projected earnings of the farmers, the system should pay for itself in about 2.3 years, they concluded. And despite higher up-front costs, the durable solar systems should be more economical in the long run than less expensive irrigation systems that use gasoline, diesel or kerosene pumps, with the added benefit of being emissions free, they added.

Focusing on novel irrigation technologies for farmers could be the needed tool for escaping poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, according to Burney. "The photovoltaic irrigation drip system could potentially become a 'game changer' for agricultural development over time," she added.

"Solar-powered irrigation provides a cleaner source of energy that is less susceptible to global price fluctuations," Naylor said. "Improved agricultural productivity in the developing world can play a critical role in global poverty alleviation, and productivity-enhancing technologies provide a sense of hope for persistently poor households."

Other co-authors of the PNAS study are Lennart Woltering and Dov Pasternak of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Niger and Marshall Burke of the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California-Berkeley.

The research was supported by an Environmental Ventures Projects grant from the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford. The Program on Food Security and the Environment is jointly run by the Woods Institute and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford.