Climate Change and Agriculture



Global warming hurts agriculture in multiple ways and triggers the greatest human impacts of climate change through heightened malnutrition rates among the rural poor. But agriculture can be strengthened against key impacts through a range of measures already available today.

  • Large-Scale Primary Sectors increase Climate Risks
The primary sectors of the economy are the most sensitive to climate change, in particular agriculture, crops, livestock, and fisheries. Land-based agricultural productivity in particular is highly dependent on temperature and precipitation or water availability. As a result, countries still highly dependent on agriculture, like Mozambique, where the sector accounts for nearly 30% of its GDP, are also weakly diversified against climate risks.

  • Malnutrition: biggest climate killer
More variable and extreme weather and changing rainfall patterns can reduce the local availability of food in worst affected regions. When those effects take place in impoverished areas where subsistence farming is widespread, people ultimately have less food to eat and malnutrition rates increase. Worldwide the effect of this impact is so significant that it actually accounts for the majority of deaths linked to climate change, or more than 200,000 deaths per year, mainly among children in Africa and South Asia.

  • Climate change effects on agriculture are negative overall but some impacts are positive
In high-latitude regions, particularly in the northern hemisphere, moderate increases in temperature and rainfall changes are expected to lead to a small gain in crop yields and livestock production by lengthening growing and grazing seasons. Increasing concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere may also benefit crop yields, making crops grow faster and more efficiently.

  • Negative effects on agriculture hit poorest regions the hardest
Unfortunately, regional changes are most adverse in tropical or sub-tropical parts of the world that are home to the majority of the world’s poorest groups. Low-latitude regions are expected to experience negative yield impacts for major cereals such as wheat and rice. The loss of water resources in areas that already experience high levels of water stress and low precipitation can have significant negative effects on agriculture. Marginal growing conditions in these areas also mean fertility benefits from higher CO2 on which plants feed are unlikely to be realizable in practice.

  • Multiple stresses will limit the world’s ability to meet growing food demand
Across fisheries, crops, and livestock, the global availability of food will be under further stress due not only to climate factors. Agricultural production is currently expanding around the world as a result of increases in living standards in developing countries, particularly in Asia, but also because of sustained global population growth. These trends will continue alongside climate stresses that sap more and more agricultural productivity, causing price increases across key foodstuffs like wheat to potentially triple by 2050.

  • Water stress can be tackled with existing solutions
Increasing the efficiency of water use and distribution is one of the most effective approaches to combating water stress. Drip irrigation is an example of a technological solution that saves water for crops by dripping water slowly to the roots of plants through a network of small pipes. Where traditional canal infrastructure is in place, water loses can be significantly reduced by lining the drain-ways with an impermeable barrier. Various programmes for managing the operation and use of underground water supplies have also proven to function in highly arid environments such as Mauritania.

  • Protection of agriculture against more extreme weather can be strengthened
Every facet of agricultural activity depends on the weather and increasing changes in the weather expose farmers to additional risks. Risks are highest in poorer communities, particularly Africa, where the existing climate observing system is the weakest. Reinforcing this network and its dissemination of appropriate information would allow for more accurate short-term and seasonal weather prediction, boosting knowledge and increasing farmers’ ability to plan for and react quickly to harmful weather conditions.
Photobucket