How
does farming & agriculture affect climate change, and how does climate change
affect farming & agriculture?
Climate
change is something that is very well known now and is affecting our planet in many
ways. There are lots of actions that affect and make it worse, from industries,
cars, even farming. Although farming and agriculture does not really seem like
it affects our climate, in certain ways it does. So here are the ways that
farming affects our climate change:
Agriculture
is responsible for 14 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions, and broader
rural land-use decisions have an even larger impact.
Dr.
Rattan Lal, Professor of Soil Science at Ohio State University, has calculated
that over the last 150 years, 476 billion of tonnes of carbon has been emitted
from farmland soils due to inappropriate farming and grazing practices,
compared with ‘only’ 270 Gt emitted from of burning of fossil fuels.
Land-use changes can also significantly contribute to climate
change. Large scale changes such as deforestation, soil erosion or
machine-intensive farming methods may all contribute to increased carbon
concentrations in the atmosphere.
Besides its contribution to global warming, farming has other
detrimental effects on the environment. Agriculture is often the reason for
deforestation and a change in land use, from natural ecosystems, that take-up
and store carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, to farmland. (CO2)
Agriculture
Agriculture is also responsible for a long list of negative
impacts on the environment. Fertilisers rich in nitrogen can pollute water and
threaten aquatic ecosystems. Pesticides, herbicides, and monocultures can lead
to a loss in biodiversity. As populations expand agricultural production must
increase or become more efficient. Increasing the area of land for farming,
offers one option for increasing production but it has its drawbacks.
The ”perfect storm”
The combination of advancing climate change and an
already-vulnerable industrial system is a “perfect storm” that threatens
farmers’ livelihoods and our food supply.
How climate change will challenge farmers.
Changing precipitation patterns.
Changing temperature patterns.
Floods & Droughts.
Changes in crop and livestock viability.
New pests, pathogens, and weed problems.
Degraded soils.
Simplified landscapes.
How will climate change affect?
How will these industrially amplified climate change impacts
affect people—farmers, residents of rural communities, and all of us who rely
on the food farmers produce?
Summer heat intensifies.
Accelerating crop failures and livestock losses.
Farming communities will be among the first to feel the ways extreme weather exacerbates agriculture’s impacts on water resources.
So overall, yes, farming and agriculture affect and are affected by climate change. Hopefully there will be a way to deal with it so farmers can continue working without any extra issues.