What are the solutions?

Producing uneaten food squanders resources and generates 8 percent of emissions. Interventions can reduce waste at key points, as food moves from farm to fork.

Meat-centric diets come with a steep climate price tag: one-fifth of global emissions. Plant-rich diets dramatically reduce emissions and rates of chronic disease.

Silvopasture is an ancient practice, integrating trees and pasture into a single system for raising livestock. It sequesters carbon while improving animal health and productivity.

The practices of regenerative agriculture increase carbon-rich soil organic matter. Enhancing and sustaining the health of the soil sequesters carbon and improves productivity.

Tropical staple trees provide important foods, such as mango, cocoa and coffee. Compared to annual crops, they have similar yields but higher rates of carbon sequestration.

Conservation agriculture avoids tilling and employs cover crops and crop rotation. By protecting the soil, it makes land more resilient and sequesters carbon.

Like all regenerative land-use practices, tree intercropping — intermingling trees and crops — increases the carbon content of the soil and productivity of the land.

Managed grazing imitates the activity of migratory herds to improve soil health, carbon sequestration, water retention, and forage productivity.

Traditional cooking practices produce toxic smoke and 2 to 5 percent of annual greenhouse gas emissions. Clean cookstoves reduce emissions and protect human health.ﾠ

The world's abandoned farmland is an opportunity for drawdown. Restoring it sequesters carbon and can improve food security, farmers ' livelihoods, and ecosystem health.

Flooded rice paddies produce large quantities of methane — 10 percent of agricultural emissions. Techniques exist to reduce methane, while improving production and sequestering carbon.

Multistrata agroforestry blends taller trees and one or more layers of crops. It achieves high rates of carbon sequestration, similar to forests, while producing food.

SRI is a holistic approach to sustainable rice cultivation. It improves soil, lowers inputs of seeds and water, and increases yields, while reducing emissions.

From backyard bins to industrial-scale operations, composting food waste converts organic material into stable soil carbon and valuable fertilizer, averting methane emissions.

When overused, nitrogen fertilizers destroy soil organic matter, pollute waterways, and create nitrous oxide. They can be more efficiently managed to reduce these negative impacts.

Pumping and distributing water requires large quantities of energy. Drip and sprinkler irrigation, among other practices and technologies, make water use more precise and efficient.

Biochar results from slowly baking biomass in the absence of oxygen. Retaining most of the feedstock's carbon, biochar can be buried for sequestration, while enriching soil.