Agriculture has increasingly become a key sector for adaptation and mitigation initiatives that address climate change and help ensure food security for a growing global population: Is it really possible to mitigate global warming effects by Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) initiatives or we need to go much beyond it to cover the whole food value chain sustainable?
“Sustainble food is key to containing climate change”
Agriculture bears a great responsibility for environmental protection as it is carried out in open spaces leading to grater impact on the soil, water, air and on the plants and animals that inhabit farm areas. At the same time, intensive farming, aimed at increasing the yield, results in monotonously denuded farmland and use of heavy machinery and fertilizers also lead to loss of soil fertility and soil and wind erosion. In fact, agriculture and climate change have a reciprocal relationship with the latter also affecting the former, through precipitation levels and temperature variations. The solution to these issues lie in sustainable farming practices that focus on incorporating conservation of available resources as well as farming practices aimed specifically at environmental protection. Some of these measures include improvements in the use and management of nutrients, pesticides, energy and water, using less of these inputs per unit of land. A few environmentally beneficial practices are conservation tillage, improved manure storage, or soil nutrient testing. While these are definitely encouraging, more needs to be done, especially in the area of policy making.
The awareness and concern for the impact of climate change is at its peak, when the humanity is clearly seeing its effects in real situation of high weather variability, frequent irregularities in climatic patterns, and disappearing biotic flora and fauna. Food production is one area which not only causes global warming but also cures or mitigates it.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
The need for sustainable food production and consumption is becoming essential for the future sustenance of humanity and even the existence of life in the only living planet in the solar system or even the universe limits known. As scientists reveal the impact of uncontrolled global warming causing irreversible damage to the planet, efforts by the policy makers, citizens and stakeholders need concerted and unified efforts immediately and not just talks. The time for action is now or never.
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