By Cool Farm Alliance member and Chief Technical Advisor for Anthesis, Craig Simmons

Project Drawdown, a new book containing research assembled and edited by sustainability guru Paul Hawken, highlights the importance of food and agriculture in mitigating global carbon emissions. Billed as the ‘most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming’, Drawdown maps, measures, models and describes in detail the top 100 solutions to climate change.

Drawdown presents research from a broad coalition of researchers, scientists, policy-makers and business leaders, assimilated into a coherent plan which is clearly explained and presented as a series of discrete climate change mitigating solutions. Additionally, each intervention is explained, costed and ranked according to sector and likely climate benefit.

What came as a surprise to many, as Paul Hawken explained when I met him at a recent launch event in London, was the number and significance of solutions linked to the food and agriculture sectors.

Of the top 25 climate change mitigation measures presented, ten (listed below) are linked to the food sector and many more would be impacted by interventions within the wider agricultural supply chain.

The Cool Farm Tool is uniquely positioned to quantify carbon drawn down by activities in these high impact food and agriculture solution spaces.

For more information, see www.drawdown.org, or get hold of a copy of the book (already a New York Times Bestseller). ISBN 0143130447.