Climate-Smart Agriculture: Assessment and Adaptation Strategies in Changing Climate

Abstract

Climate change is the most critical threat to food security amid increasing crop demand. This increasing demand for food has been previously tried to be met through the use of synthetic fertilizers and effective application of weed- and pest-controlling chemicals. However, these methods of increasing crop productivity rely on finite resources and are often unsustainable. They are now proven to be posing a great threat to the environment and causing a negative change in the planet’s natural climate. Fortunately, the threat has been realized by scientists, and the world has started to lay the foundations for sustainable intensification of agriculture and to heighten the resilience of crops to climate change. The solutions discovered so far are numerous with many of them not yet tested. Climate change assessment is the first priority in this regard. Much of the recent researches have demonstrated a multi-scale and multidimensional nature of climate change to assess the potential effects of climate change on agriculture and the options for adaptation. These options for adaptation have been different in different regions of the world with clear differences among strategies in rich and poor countries. The pressure for adaptation is greatest in poor countries where the adaptive capacity is least abundant. Adaptation to climate change could be autonomous (market-driven) or planned. Both of these adaptation strategies are driven by certain measures. Some adaptation strategies are easily achieved with the help of existing technologies, some need development of new technologies while others just need policy and institutional/market reforms. Numerous researchers have tried to assess and give tools for the potential impact of climate change which are largely based on modelling techniques. Indeed, models are useful tools for assessing this potential impact and evaluating the options for adaptation, yet they do not match the level of real solutions that could be brought about by efficient adaptive human agency. The importance of agriculture as performance is useful in counterbalancing the modelling approaches towards mitigating the negative impacts of climate change. The adaptation and mitigation strategies are and should be social phenomena which need social attendance in the form of improved and sustainable agricultural practices and could help agriculture contribute less to the changing climate. This chapter will focus on numerous strategies that could be adapted to assess and cope with the negative impacts of changing climate on agriculture.