Impact Of Climate Change On Agriculture

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Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture and How to Potentially Prevent Many Large-Scale Environmental Issues

Under the influence of climate change, world is becoming excessively warm, weather events are becoming increasingly intense and frequent, sea levels are rising to questionable degree, prolonged droughts are affecting the production of crops and biodiversity is encountering extinction threats. Climate change affects the agriculture in many ways.

A bulk of literature is evident that temperature changes have altered the developmental span and dormancy of pathogens to a considerable extent and they have become comparatively more resistant (USEPA, 2017). The basic underlying reason behind their resistance is the unfavorable environment that attempts to develop immunity in the pathogens with more advancement.

The increasing temperature results in the elevated metabolic and breeding rates of pests and insects particularly that of corn, soya bean and wheat. As a result, their increasing number and immunity affect the production of crops to a considerable extent (USEPA, 2017).

Plants possess specific growth enzymes and hormones that are highly temperature and pH sensitive in nature (USEPA, 2017). Climate change along with acid rain affects both of the factors and disrupts the developmental periods of plants substantially.

Increasing temperature results in increased evaporation in some areas that in turn elevates the instances of rain in particular areas beyond expectation whereas some areas remain deprived of rain (USEPA, 2017). Such conditions give rise to floods and droughts; both of which are highly unfavorable for the growth and development of crops.

As mentioned above, increased evaporation generates comparatively stronger raining probabilities along with the higher precipitation of ice chunks in the clouds (USEPA, 2017). As a result, hailing affects the miniature plants and affects their later development adversely.

Due to constant flooding and droughts, agricultural surfaces either become barren or infertile when undergo substantial runoff. In such instances, plants render unsuccessful to get enough nutrients and appropriate soil texture to grow and develop (USEPA, 2017). As a result, global agricultural productions are affected gravely.

How to prevent climate change globally?

Although climate change is a global issue yet we can make active attempts at individual levels to overcome this issue. Some of these strategies are stated below.

Typically, carbon- rich fossil fuels are widely used to extract and produce energy for household, industrial and commercial purpose. Needless to say, these resources are non- renewable; we cannot generate them again once they are burned. These fuels are the substantial sources of carbon- dioxide and chlorofluorocarbons that weaken the ozone layer and pave ways for Ultraviolet radiations to reach the ground and attempt to elevate temperature. Hence, the need of the hour is to eliminate their use and replace them with renewable energy sources that produce potentially neutral end- products and decrease the risk of global warming (DSF, 2018).

Trees are the natural consumers of chief air contaminant such as Carbon dioxide. They utilize CO2 during the process of photosynthesis for making their food and providing the atmosphere with environment- friendly oxygen. Moreover, plants make the water evaporation possible and cause the rain to happen—decreasing the pollution and increasing the probability of rain (DSF, 2018).

Lesser the energy we use less would be the contamination of environment with dangerous gases. This is because chlorofluorocarbons are the chief causes of air pollution and depletion of ozone layer (DSF, 2018). Since, these gases are produces from the burning of carbon; their reduced consumption will undoubtedly bring about constructive effects in environment. The imposition of Carbon Tax is the best possible governmental effort to reduce the consumption of carbon. This tax is the amount of money that government charges to burn specific units of carbon content present in the fossil fuels. The basic rationale behind its implementation is the discouragement of industries to burn fossil fuels (DSF, 2018).

Works cited

“Climate Impacts on Agriculture and Food Supply.” United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), 2017, https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climate-impacts/climate-impacts-agriculture-and-food-supply_.html , Assessed 5 May 2019

“Top 10 things you can do about climate change.” David Suzuki Foundation (DSF), 2018, https://davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/top-10-ways-can-stop-climate-change/ Assessed 5 May 2019