How Will Agriculture Adapt to a Shifting Climate?
Global climate change poses particular risks to poor farmers in developing countries, but there are steps that farmers, policymakers, and researchers can take to minimize losses and adapt to climate change.
Past emissions that are already in the pipeline mean that even if global emissions stopped today, the Earth's temperature would rise by about 0.5 to 1.0 degree Celsius over the next several decades. If global emissions stabilize at today's level, the temperature would increase by 2 to 5 degrees Celsius by the time it reaches equilibrium. And if emissions continue to grow at current rates, they would cause temperatures to rise by 3 to 10 degrees Celsius, not including climate feedback effects that could further exacerbate climate change in a vicious circle.
Awareness of climate change and its risks has now made it firmly onto the international agenda. Former U.S. vice president Al Gore recently released a documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, on the risks of global warming, and in October 2006 Sir Nicholas Stern, a U.K. Treasury official and former World Bank economist, published the "Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change," a 700-page report arguing that the risks are large and the costs of acting now are relatively small.
"Climate change is rapidly emerging as one of the most serious threats that humanity may ever face," said Kenyan Environment Minister Kivutha Kibwana at the opening of the United Nations Climate Change Conference on November 6. The conference, of which Kibwana was president, brought together representatives of the 166 parties to the Kyoto Protocol for their second meeting.
Because it is linked so closely to natural resources and climate conditions, agriculture will keenly feel the effects of climate change through changes in both temperature and precipitation, and thus the availability of water for growing food. Scientists predict that the interiors of major continents will warm more quickly than the oceans. In addition, current weather extremes are likely to be exacerbated. It is likely that wet areas of the world will get even wetter, and dry areas will get drier. Thus, for example, monsoons in South Asia will intensify, while arid regions of Africa will become drier. Mark Rosegrant, director of IFPRI's Environment and Production Technology Division, points out, "Agriculture is the largest consumer of water globally, and as climate change alters the quantity and reliability of water supplies, it could threaten the welfare of millions of poor farmers."
Clearly, controlling and ultimately reducing greenhouse gas emissions are essential to minimizing the severity of global climate change and its harmful effects. Yet global warming has already begun, and given the levels of past greenhouse gas emissions, it will continue for decades.
According to Bob Watson, the World Bank's chief scientist and advisor for environmentally and socially sustainable development, "The Earth's climate is already changing, and further change is inevitable. Therefore we need to both mitigate climate change and to adapt to climate change. Clearly, the industrialized countries must take the lead in mitigating climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but large developing countries such as India and China will also have to start to reduce their emissions over the next 20 to 30 years, albeit with differentiated responsibilities. But for many countries, especially in Africa and small countries in Asia and Latin America, the challenge of the day is adaptation to current climate variability and climate change."
Sorry to see that, thus far, no-one has taken up your invitation to dialogue this important issue. Hopefully you're still enthused to pick this up.
I've been considering how I might best serve the cause of sustainable living on planet earth. I welcome Al Gore's sounding of the alarm. His proposed solutions are perhaps a bit thin.
More than anything else, I believe that people in general need to see a working model of an alternative, viable and attractive living system. As a youth I used to visit my uncle's pre-industrial farm in Wales. That was way before the general societal awareness about climate change. However, I could see clearly that, if everyone lived as he did, the planet and its people would be in a healthy state.
I have a specific idea that I'd like to explore with like-minded individuals. I want to get my hands on some acreage, start or align with a charity for the purpose of promoting sustainable living, source people who have the core skills necessary (e.g. growing food, building shelters, etc.), design an interdependent, self-reliant system with those people and then develop a visitor centre where others can see the working model in practice and learn how to do the same or join it.
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Hi, you bring up a good point about the need to have a community that is both an an example/lesson and a testament to the fact that we can live sustainably. It sounds like you are interested in starting what some people call "an intentional living community" that centers around sustainable living. I've never been a part of one, but I would be interested in joining the one you describe.
Thousands of intentional living communities exist around the world, and you can learn more about them or start your own at: http://www.ic.org/
Best,
Vilma
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Thanks, Vilma. I'll visit the site that you mentioned
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I think agriculture is a risky business in the face of a warming glob, which leaves our rains scanty and unreliable. You can't run away from global warming because its occurrence is becoming eminent thanks to the developed world, especially countries like the US, Australia and for some time Canada, that turned deaf ears to the international plea for reducing emissions. Even if they were dedicated for the cause of fighting climate change, they could do very little considering the complete reliance of our modern world on fossil fuels and the absence of any viable green energy source so far.
So what? Seems global warming is looming closer, and agriculture is the most vulnerable form of business. My idea? I think that the poor south can not run away from global warming, but from agriculture? We certainly can, if we have the gut. Shortly put, developing countries can become as insensitive about global warming as many developed countries by reducing their reliance on agriculture. Facilitate commercialization, input (and extension package) provision, tackle institutional stumbling blocks, and make rural markets work better. If policy makers properly accomplish their duties in these areas, agricultural transformation will take its course, and hopefully agrarian economies will transform themselves in time to modern ones before the glob warms up and the rains disappear. I believe that growing out of agriculture is the only way to escape the looming danger of global warming for the south.
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The note on ‘How Will Agriculture Adapt to a Shifting Climate?’ is timely and extremely important reminder. Because of this reason I am giving my comments though it is a belated comment. Already millions are experiencing the adverse affects of climate change. Apart from visible large scale affects, which are occurring frequently in different parts of the world, there are a number of unnoticed/ unacknowledged affects, which are occurring continuously around most parts of the globe, especially in developing world. These include decline of agriculture productivity albeit on small rate, decline of quality of natural resources, local ecosystems, etc. I have following suggestions for adapting to shifting climate:
1. Agro-forestry perhaps is the most effective method to deal with, and adapt to climate change. Firstly agro-forestry increases carbon sequestration and reduces the net release of greenhouse gases into atmosphere. Secondly tree cover on vast tracks of land increases the organic matter in soils on vast areas, which retained more rain water and increase surface and sub-surface soil moisture. In this process, it helps the land to cope with increased variations in the precipitation, which is expected to be one of the potential adverse affects of climate change. Thirdly, agro-forestry could moderate fluctuations in farm income as farmers can get income from two sources, i.e. from annual crops and trees. The list can go on.
2. In many societies agro forestry is a traditional way of cultivation. But it has gone out due to mechanization. Agro-forestry could be adopted in several ways without seriously affecting farming operations, including the use of heavy machinery.
3. One of the impediments of agro-forestry is governments’ restrictions on rising, harvesting and marketing of certain tree species. Such restrictions should be removed immediately.
4. Similar restrictions on domestic and institutional sites should also be removed, which are acting as strong disincentives for growing trees on vacant domestic and commercial plots.
5. Current trend of using non-renewable products like cement, steel, plastic, synthetic chemicals, etc in place of renewable items like timber and other tree based products should be reversed. Such a change and incentives for such a change may go a long way in rising trees extensively on all sorts of vacant areas and crop lands as mono crop and in conjunction with other uses.
For comments bhaskara@yahoo.co.in
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