New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has opened the first meeting of an international effort to reduce the climate change efforts of agriculture.
Representatives from 28 countries are meeting at Te Papa in Wellington as part of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases.
The alliance was one of the few concrete actions agreed at a climate conference in Copenhagen in December last year.
Senior scientists and government officials from countries including Ghana, India and the United States are meeting to decide how to combine their research efforts and what to put the emphasis on.
Russia on Wednesday became the latest country to join the alliance.
Two important agricultural producers, China and Brazil, have not joined the group, but are at the meeting to observe.
Mr Key told the meeting the challenge is to feed the world's growing population while limiting the carbon emissions this will create.
