Agriculture and the Environment

Since 1990, Burness Communications has teamed up with gifted researchers, nonprofits and world leaders to promote strategies to ensure the global food supply, protect forests, and build consensus around the causes and impact of global climate change.  

When nearly one in four people worldwide live on less than $1 per day and one in 12 is malnourished, alerting policymakers and farmers about new approaches to hunger is a crucial first step towards a healthier, well-fed world. 

When deforestation contributes nearly one-fifth of greenhouse gas emissions and the illegal trade in timber uproots families from their homes, driving conflict and wars, the voices of local communities and advocates need to be heard.

When the loss of local crop varieties that have defined cultures for generations and yielded harvests of plenty leaves farmers unprepared for new threats like climate change, new pests and diseases, action and advocacy to rescue and preserve crop varieties are imperative.

And when urban expansion and drought drive livestock and the herders who keep them into a perpetual cycle of hunger, illness, and poverty, their story must be told.

From the halls of a futuristic seed vault deep inside a mountain in the Arctic Circle to the green rainforests of the Congo Basin and the rolling farmlands of the East Africa's Great Rift Valley, Burness has been there, advancing our clients’ work with the hope of building a more equitable and sustainable world.

We have collaborated with our clients to:

 
• Advance efforts to highlight the important role that new crop varieties, improved farming practices, and supportive policies play in ending hunger in Africa
• Highlight new research from the world's leading agricultural scientists on issues ranging from the threat of stem rust in wheat to water scarcity to low-cost tools that help poor farmers detect deadly diseases in their crops
• Ensure a sustainable world food supply by conserving crop diversity
• Advocate for policies that support the role of forests in fighting climate change and benefit over 1 billion poor people who depend on forests
• Position agriculture, rural development, and forests as key issues at the key UN climate conferences in Bali, Poznan and Copenhagen.