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Interview: WB helps Mexican farmers address challenges of climate change

Xinhua, January 23, 2016 Adjust font size:

More than 1,000 farmers in Mexico have invested in renewable energy technology to become more environmentally friendly, an economist of the World Bank said.

Small farmers, especially those in the north and south of Mexico, have installed solar panels and biodigesters through a rural sustainable development program sponsored by the World Bank and the Mexican Agriculture Ministry, Svetlana Edmeades, a senior agricultural economist at the World Bank, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

"The main objective of this program is to reduce the greenhouse gas effect by increasing the adoption of specific technologies," she said when attending a forum on production management in Mexico City.

Over the past four years, 1,200 Mexican farmers have participated in the program, which reduced the emission of 3.3 million tons of carbon dioxide by 2015, according to the World Bank. By the end of 2016, the program aims to reach over 2,100 farmers in the country.

A delegation of academics and officials from China's Guangdong province recently visited Mexico to learn about the program's application, said the World Bank.

According to official statistics, 6.4 percent of greenhouse gases emitted in Mexico come from agriculture, and 9.9 percent from forestry.

Edmeades said that for each 1 million pesos (54,200 U.S. dollars) provided by the World Bank, the Mexican government matches the amount and small farmers complete the costs of acquiring the technology.

The biodigesters are very useful for livestock farmers as they can use excrement to generate electricity while avoiding the emission of methane gas.

The solar panels are used to generate power for machinery and irrigation systems.

"There has been a growing interest in our program as Mexico's energy demands keep rising," Edmeades said.

She added that another advantage of the program in Mexico is that small farmers can also generate electricity for their communities.

"They are becoming local electricity providers as the major grid does not reach everywhere in the country. ... The producers are now part of the electric grid," she said. Endi