Adapting agriculture to climate change: a review

Anwar, Muhuddin Rajin; Liu, De Li; Macadam, Ian; Kelly, Georgina

doi:10.1007/s00704-012-0780-1

Cited by 162 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 127 publications

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“…Changes of atmospheric CO 2 concentration, of mean and extreme temperatures, and of rainfall amount and timing will directly affect yields and land use (crop suitability). It will also result in changes in water availability patterns and in additional irrigation requirements that will subsequently affect agricultural productivity (Anwar et al, 2013). In addition, emergent pests and diseases may result in dramatic crop damages (Gregory et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate-smart cropping systems for temperate and tropical agriculture: mitigation, adaptation and trade-offs

2017

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-Climate-smart cropping systems should be designed with three objectives: reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, adapting to changing and fluctuating climate and environment, and securing food production sustainably. Agriculture can improve the net GHG emissions balance via three levers: less N 2 O, CH 4 and CO 2 emissions, more carbon storage, and green energy production (agrifuels, biogas). Reducing the application of mineral N fertilizer is the main option for reducing N 2 O emissions either directly or by increasing the proportion of legumes in the rotation. The most promising options for mitigating CH 4 emissions in paddy fields are based on mid-season drainage or intermittent irrigation. The second option is storing more carbon in soil and biomass by promoting no-tillage (less fuel, crop residues), sowing cover crops, introducing or maintaining grasslands and promoting agroforestry. Breeding for varieties better adapted to thermal shocks and drought is mainly suggested as long-term adaptation to climate change. Short-term strategies have been identified from current practices to take advantage of more favorable growing conditions or to offset negative impacts: shifting sowing dates, changing species, cultivars and crop rotations, modifying soil management and fertilization, introducing or expanding irrigation. Some crops could also move to more suitable locations. Model-based tools and site-specific technologies should be developed to optimize, support and secure farmer's decisions in a context of uncertainty and hazards. Most of the adaptation and mitigation options are going in the same way but tradeoffs will have to be addressed (e.g. increasing the part of legumes will be possible only with significant breeding efforts). This will be a challenge for designing cropping systems in a multifunctional perspective.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate-smart cropping systems for temperate and tropical agriculture: mitigation, adaptation and trade-offs

2017

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“…Interestingly, the most specific adaptation actions identified-directed support for adopting biotechnology, new crop-breeding programs and incentives for environmentally sensitive practice change-require considerable coordination with jurisdictional authorities at different level of governments to implement. Such adaptation action at the regional level would require more coordination among sectoral planners to create and deliver responses through use of appropriate mixes of incentives, training, information, new tools, and shared resources (i.e., public goods; Smit and Skinner 2002;Anton et al 2011Anton et al , 2013Anwar et al 2013). Planning processes involving high uncertainty will necessarily require the mainstreaming of climate considerations into planning be an ongoing process, involving continued interaction between regional stakeholders and agencies so that plans be developed, implemented, and revisited as new information and priorities are identified.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An integrated decision-support process for adaptation planning: climate change as impetus for scenario planning in an agricultural region of Canada

et al. 2016

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The amount of information required to adapt to climate change is vast: downscaled climate projections, information on environmental impact, sectoral performance, external drivers, regional strategies, policies and practices. It can be argued that most of this information is accessible at the community/regional level, and thus, the important challenges to adaptation are not information gaps, but constraints created by fragmented planning decisions and a sector-by-sector basis for financial and human resource allocations. To strategically address this through adaptation planning, we developed and tested a place-based decision-making framework that creates an integrated platform for considering regional and global sectoral drivers in Eastern Ontario, Canada. Using available socioeconomic and biophysical information from regional authorities, alternative future scenarios were used to describe the range of socioeconomic futures and their vulnerabilities to climate change. We found that: (1) integration of diverse sets of available data (rather than narrowly focused sectoral assessments) helped identify shared common objectives (maximizing the long-term environmental, economic, social well-being within the region), (2) a high degree of congruence existed as the key drivers of change, irrespective of sector, (3) exploring the future scenarios highlighted shared regional priorities and helped identify adaptation priorities requiring more integrated regional planning.

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“…The necessary interlinkage between supply and demand measures is overlooked in most studies on climate-smart agriculture. Recent reviews on the topic focused on either mitigation (Smith et al 2008) of or adaption (Anwar et al 2013) to climate change reviewing measures on the agricultural supply side only, while other studies focused only on the demand side (Hallström et al 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping and linking supply- and demand-side measures in climate-smart agriculture. A review

Scherer

Verburg

2017

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

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Climate change and food security are two of humanity's greatest challenges and are highly interlinked. On the one hand, climate change puts pressure on food security. On the other hand, farming significantly contributes to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. This calls for climate-smart agriculture-agriculture that helps to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Climate-smart agriculture measures are diverse and include emission reductions, sink enhancements, and fossil fuel offsets for mitigation. Adaptation measures include technological advancements, adaptive farming practices, and financial management. Here, we review the potentials and trade-offs of climate-smart agricultural measures by producers and consumers. Our two main findings are as follows: (1) The benefits of measures are often site-dependent and differ according to agricultural practices (e.g., fertilizer use), environmental conditions (e.g., carbon sequestration potential), or the production and consumption of specific products (e.g., rice and meat). (2) Climate-smart agricultural measures on the supply side are likely to be insufficient or ineffective if not accompanied by changes in consumer behavior, as climate-smart agriculture will affect the supply of agricultural commodities and require changes on the demand side in response. Such linkages between demand and supply require simultaneous policy and market incentives. It, therefore, requires interdisciplinary cooperation to meet the twin challenge of climate change and food security. The link to consumer behavior is often neglected in research but regarded as an essential component of climate-smart agriculture. We argue for not solely focusing research and implementation on one-sided measures but designing good, sitespecific combinations of both demand-and supply-side measures to use the potential of agriculture more effectively to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

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Adapting agriculture to climate change: a review

Cited by 162 publications

References 127 publications

Climate-smart cropping systems for temperate and tropical agriculture: mitigation, adaptation and trade-offs

Climate-smart cropping systems for temperate and tropical agriculture: mitigation, adaptation and trade-offs

An integrated decision-support process for adaptation planning: climate change as impetus for scenario planning in an agricultural region of Canada

Mapping and linking supply- and demand-side measures in climate-smart agriculture. A review

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