Climate Crisis and Agricultural Response: Climate Resilient Crops for Sustainability in Food Production Systems

Abstract

Climate change encompasses altered levels of temperature and humidity, variability in the rainfall pattern, fluctuations in weather parameters, rise in ambient CO2 levels, emission of greenhouse gases, global warming, etc. that results in extreme events and disasters as cyclones, floods, droughts, salinity, nutrient and heavy metal stress, change in arthropod diversity and emergence of new invasive pests. This results in un-usual effects in agro-ecosystems leading to changes in cropping patterns, crop diversity, and their interaction with biotic and abiotic stress factors, threatening livelihood, food, and nutritional security. Population displacement, declining food productivity, and vulnerable agro-ecosystems are the major consequences of altered meteorological events that occur due to climate change. Therefore, substitution of traditional crops with crops that exhibit resilience to climate crisis is the need of the hour. Smart breeding approaches and precision farming technologies as remote sensing and spectral analysis, artificial intelligence, machine learning, speed breeding, genome analysis, genetic manipulation, gene drive systems, system biology study, omics approaches, etc can make agricultural production climate resilient and sustainable. Response of biofortified crops under changing climate must also be assessed to improve the crop productivity and output.