Climate change and agriculture
Article
Climate change affects agriculture through changes in temperature, rainfall, evaporation, soil moisture, pests, diseases, weeds, extreme weather, and the timing of growing seasons. The effects vary among crops, regions, farming systems, and levels of adaptation.
Moderate warming may lengthen growing seasons in some cool regions, but higher temperatures can reduce yields by accelerating development, damaging flowers, increasing water demand, or exposing crops to heat stress. Livestock can also be affected through heat stress, disease, water availability, and feed quality.
Changes in rainfall and drought influence irrigation demand, planting dates, crop choice, soil erosion, and the reliability of harvests. Elevated carbon dioxide can increase growth in some plants, but the benefit is limited by nutrients, water, temperature, pests, and reduced nutritional quality in some crops.
Agricultural adaptation includes crop breeding, altered planting dates, irrigation management, soil conservation, diversified farming, forecasting, and changes in livestock or crop systems. Agriculture also contributes to climate change through greenhouse-gas emissions and land-use change.
Source details and credits
- Source / publisher: Wikipedia
- URL type: WWW
- Credits: Wikipedia
- URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_climate_change_on_agriculture