Described as an "historic day for agriculture", more than 300 delegates from agricultural and scientific organisations throughout the world met at a special "Agriculture and Rural Development Day".

The key theme was to discuss ways agriculture can be part of any new climate change deal, and how the sector can adapt and mitigate climate change but still secure food production.

Throughout the day delegates worked on strengthening the consensus on what is needed to fully incorporate agriculture in the post-Copenhagen climate change agenda.

It looked at the strategies needed to address climate change while farmers are still faced with the task of needing to double food production in the next 40 years.

But while farmers were repeatedly told of the importance of working together for these negotiations, there was an obvious rift between developed and developing agricultural nations, as there is at the top level of the broader talks.

African farmers in particular are adamant the focus of any deal for agriculture must be on funding for climate change adaptation, while other developed nations have stressed the need for recognising the role agriculture can, and does already, play in mitigating carbon, and why international accounting rules under Kyoto need to change to reflect this.

Delegates were told that that the same approaches to growing productivity to offer the world's rural poor greater resilience in the face of climate change also have the broader potential to reduce greenhouse emissions from agriculture more broadly.

Dean of Life Sciences at the University of Copenhagen, Per Holten-Andersen, said this year was the first time agriculture had been elevated to such a high level within the United Nations climate change negotiations and for that reason alone it was critical farmers the world over worked together.