Nairobi — "African farmers will play a major part in the solution of climate change mitigation," predicts Dennis Garrity, head of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF).

"Deforestation contributes to 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Counting the loss of trees on agricultural land this number increases to 34 percent," says Global Coordinator of the Alternatives to Slash and Burn Partnership, Peter Minang.

For both agroforestry scientists, planting trees on farms on a massive scale will yield more than just timber, fruits and fertiliser.

"Agroforestry provides an important carbon sink and takes pressure off remaining tropical forests," Garrity says. "Already 70 percent of Kenya's wood is grown on farms."

On 46 percent of the world's farmlands - or 1 billion hectares, harboring 500 million people - tree cover exceeds 10 percent, states a newly-released ICRAF study.

Reason, according to scientists at the recently-held World Agroforestry Congress in Nairobi, to include agroforests in the negotiations over a Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) climate deal at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP) in Copenhagen this December.

"Through agroforestry-mitigation, Africa can tap into the $118 billion carbon market and use the proceeds for crucial adaptation efforts," agrees Minang. "But the continent is divided on what REDD should entail."

Whereas the 10 Congo basin countries, united in the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC), want a deal on forests alone, the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) favours a broad AFOLU (Agriculture, Forestry and other Land Use) perspective, proposing a REDD Plus that includes agriculture.

"Which makes sense for countries like Kenya that are 80 percent semi-arid," explains Minang.

The African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) supports REDD, but is wary of its potential to access markets and wants to include agriculture in a redesigned Clean Development Mechanism.

"The problem," says Minang "is that CDMs have not worked in Africa. Only four percent of global CDM projects are on this continent. Of the forty projects involving forests, only four are in Africa and none has passed the registration stage."

The African Union, in a concept note for the Conference of African Heads of State and Government on Climate Change (CAHOSCC) that met in Addis Ababa on Aug. 24, resolved that: "A REDD-Plus mechanism should be designed in such a way as to accommodate different national circumstances and respective capabilities."

Some fear Africa's fragmented position will diminish its chances in Copenhagen.

"Africa should go to Copenhagen with a united voice and tell the industrialized countries they have a moral issue on their hands. They should not allow Africa to suffer of a disaster that is not of its own making. Yet, if we are fragmented we will be taken advantage off," Nobel laureate Wangari Mathaai told IPS in Nairobi.

But United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) chief Achim Steiner seemed skeptical of a comprehensive climate deal in December.

"We are just a hundred days away from Copenhagen and the negotiations are in a state of mutual frustration and lack of progress. I find that very worrying. Looking at the pace and scale of the negotiating process at the moment one would be naïve not be concerned at what can happen in just a few months," Steiner told journalists.

"REDD's not dead. Even if it doesn't have legs to it coming out of Copenhagen, there's the market that's happening outside of Kyoto as well," says Jay Samek, researcher with the Global Observatory for Ecosystem Services of Michigan State University and involved with the institute's Carbon2Markets initiative.

"Carbon is sold for 25 cents a metric tonne on the Chicago Climate Exchange in quantities of one Carbon Financial Instrument (CFI), or 100 metric tonnes," says Samek.

"Carbon sequestration on one hectare is perhaps 10 metric tonnes a year, so if ten farmers work together to offer one CFI each year to the markets, after 15 years they each get $375.

"The big risk involved for buyers of carbon in treed landscapes though is that of permanence," he warns.

Although scientists are relatively sure about tropical forests, determining carbon sequestration in the agricultural-forest mosaic of agroforestry projects is a headache, compounded by a variety in farming practices, land reform and economic upheavals.

But trees will become a carbon cash crop in the future, argues Rodell Lasco, senior scientist at the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) "Right now financial barriers and governance issues make it seem unpractical, but when the countries of the world get their act together and start addressing climate change seriously, agroforestry can very well turn out to be a cheap alternative compared to other options in the West."

Samek agrees. "There is a lot of money being invested getting ready for REDD and prices will go up when legislation catches up and companies are forced to cap and trade."

In 2007 the Norwegian government pledged two billion dollars for forest conversation projects around the world while insisting that a REDD mechanism should become part of a post-Kyoto climate deal when the protocol lapses in 2012.

Samek: "But even on a voluntary basis there is a lot of activity in the markets and many opportunities for companies to make use of it. We are for instance talking to Cadbury's about a carbon-label on their chocolate, highlighting the mitigating impact cocoa-plantations have and perhaps people are willing to pay extra for it.

"It's really about how to bring the market system into it. As we eliminate the hurdles, it becomes relevant to ask the question if we can set different prices for different forms of mitigation. Can we ask more money for a system that's not just a plantation, but preserves biodiversity and offers other co-benefits to farmers?"