Climate Change and Sugarcane Production: Potential Impact and Mitigation Strategies

Abstract

Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarumL.) is an important crop for sugar and bioenergy worldwide. The increasing greenhouse gas emission and global warming during climate change result in the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. Climate change is expected to have important consequences for sugarcane production in the world, especially in the developing countries because of relatively low adaptive capacity, high vulnerability to natural hazards, and poor forecasting systems and mitigating strategies. Sugarcane production may have been negatively affected and will continue to be considerably affected by increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme environmental conditions due to climate change. The degree of climate change impact on sugarcane is associated with geographic location and adaptive capacity. In this paper, we briefly reviewed sugarcane response to climate change events, sugarcane production in several different countries, and challenges for sugarcane production in climate change in order for us to better understand effects of climate change on sugarcane production and to propose strategies for mitigating the negative impacts of climate change and improving sugarcane production sustainability and profitability.

Inter‐relationship between photosynthetic efficiency, Δ13C, antioxidant activity and sugarcane yield under drought stress in field conditions

“…The sugarcane is an important agricultural crop that contributes to the production of sugar, ethanol and biofuel, and its biomass is used for cogeneration of electricity (Walter & Ensinas, ). The crop is cultivated in more than 90 countries around the world, covering regions with high agricultural potential, where the areas of largest yield are in Brazil and India (Waclawovsky et al, ; Zhao & Li, ).…”

“…Drought is one of the main climatic factors that currently affects the world's cultivated areas and reduces the crop yielding, including sugarcane (Endres et al, ; Jangpromma et al, ; Silva et al, ; Zhao & Li, ). Moreover, current climate change may increase the effects of drought and hence reduce the availability of water for agriculture (Abdallah, Moses, & Prakash, ).…”

Adaptive physiological and biochemical response of sugarcane genotypes to high-temperature stress

“…It is one of the world’s major C4 crops that mainly grow in the tropic and sub-tropic regions. Weather and climate related events (i.e., growth environment of atmospheric [CO 2 ], temperature, precipitation, and other extreme weather) are the key factors for sugarcane production worldwide, especially in many developing countries (Zhao and Li 2015). The rise in temperature even by a single degree beyond the threshold level is considered as heat stress in plants (Hasanuzzaman et al 2013).…”

Implications of climate change for the sugarcane industry

“…The industry contributes significantly to gross domestic product in major sugarcane producing economies such as Brazil, India, and China. From the late 1990s onward, driven by growing concern about climate change and its potential economic consequences for the agricultural sector, researchers began to study the impacts of climate change on sugarcane production to better understand how projected changes in variables such as air temperature, rainfall, and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) concentration influence sugarcane production . This has created a body of knowledge of how changes in climate lead to changes in the primary production of sugarcane.…”