Threat to future global food security from climate change and ozone air pollution

Agriculture production is directly dependent on climate change and weather. Possible changes in temperature, precipitation and CO2 concentration are expected to significantly impact crop growth and ultimately we lose our crop productivity and indirectly affect the sustainable food availability issue. The overall impact of climate change on worldwide food production is considered to be low to moderate with successful adaptation and adequate irrigation. Climate change has a serious impact on the availability of various resources on the earth especially water, which sustains life on this planet. The global food security situation and outlook remains delicately imbalanced amid surplus food production and the prevalence of hunger, due to the complex interplay of social, economic, and ecological factors that mediate food security outcomes at various human and institutional scales. Weather aberration poses complex challenges in terms of increased variability and risk for food producers and the energy and water sectors. Changes in the biosphere, biodiversity and natural resources are adversely affecting human health and quality of life. Throughout the 21st century, India is projected to experience warming above global level. India will also begin to experience more seasonal variation in temperature with more warming in the winters than summers. Longevity of heat waves across India has extended in recent years with warmer night temperatures and hotter days, and this trend is expected to continue. Strategic research priorities are outlined for a range of sectors that underpin global food security, including: agriculture, ecosystem services from agriculture, climate change, international trade, water management solutions, the water-energy-food security nexus, service delivery to smallholders and women farmers, and better governance models and regional priority setting. There is a need to look beyond agriculture and invest in affordable and suitable farm technologies if the problem of food insecurity is to be addressed in a sustainable manner. Introduction Globally, agriculture is one of the most vulnerable sectors to climate change. This vulnerability is relatively higher in India in view of the large population depending on agriculture and poor coping capabilities of small and marginal farmers. Impacts of climate change pose a serious threat to food security. “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (World Food Summit, 1996). This definition gives rise to four dimensions of food security: availability of food, accessibility (economically and physically), utilization (the way it is used and assimilated by the human body) and stability of these three dimensions. According to the United Nations, in 2015, there are still 836 million people in the world living in extreme poverty (less than USD1.25/day) (UN, 2015). And according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), at least 70 percent of the very poor live in rural areas, most of them depending partly (or completely) on agriculture for their livelihoods. It is estimated that 500 million smallholder farms in the developing world are supporting almost 2 billion people, and in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa these small farms produce about 80 percent of the food consumed. Climate change threatens to reverse the progress made so far in the fight against hunger and malnutrition. As highlighted by the assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC), climate change augments and intensifies risks to food security for the most vulnerable countries and populations. Few of the major risks induced by climate change, as identified by IPCC have direct consequences for food security (IPCC, 2007). These are mainly to loss of rural livelihoods and income, loss of marine and coastal ecosystems, livelihoods loss of terrestrial and inland water ecosystems and food insecurity (breakdown of food systems). Rural farmers, whose livelihood depends on the use of natural resources, are likely to bear the brunt of adverse impacts. Most of the crop simulation model runs and experiments under elevated temperature and carbon dioxide indicate that by 2030, a 3-7% decline in the yield of principal cereal crops like rice and wheat is likely in India by adoption of current production technologies. Global warming impacts growth, reproduction and yields of food and horticulture crops, increases crop water requirement, causes more soil erosion, increases thermal stress on animals leading to decreased milk yields and change the distribution and breeding season of fisheries. Fast changing climatic conditions, shrinking land, water and other natural resources with rapid growing population around the globe has put many challenges before us (Mukherjee, 2014). Food is going to be second most challenging issue for mankind in time to come. India will also begin to experience more seasonal variation in temperature with more warming in the winters than summers (Christensen et al., 2007). Climate change is posing a great threat to agriculture and food security in India and it's subcontinent. Water is the most critical agricultural input in India, as 55% of the total cultivated areas do not have irrigation facilities. Currently we are able to secure food supplies under these varying conditions. Under the threat of climate variability, our food grain production system becomes quite comfortable and easily accessible for local people. India's food grain production is estimated to rise 2 per cent in 2020-21 crop years to an all-time high of 303.34 million tonnes on better output of rice, wheat, pulse and coarse cereals amid good monsoon rains last year. In the 2019-20 crop year, the country's food grain output (comprising wheat, rice, pulses and coarse cereals) stood at a record 297.5 million tonnes (MT). Releasing the second advance estimates for 2020-21 crop year, the agriculture ministry said foodgrain production is projected at a record 303.34 MT. As per the data, rice production is pegged at record 120.32 MT as against 118.87 MT in the previous year. Wheat production is estimated to rise to a record 109.24 MT in 2020-21 from 107.86 MT in the previous year, while output of coarse cereals is likely to increase to 49.36 MT from 47.75 MT. Pulses output is seen at 24.42 MT, up from 23.03 MT in 2019-20 crop year. In the non-foodgrain category, the production of oilseeds is estimated at 37.31 MT in 2020-21 as against 33.22 MT in the previous year. Sugarcane production is pegged at 397.66 MT from 370.50 MT in the previous year, while cotton output is expected to be higher at 36.54 million bales (170 kg each) from 36.07. This production figure seem to be sufficient for current population, but we need to improve more and more with vertical farming and advance agronomic and crop improvement tools for future burgeoning population figure under the milieu of climate change issue. Our rural mass and tribal people have very limited resources and they sometime complete depend on forest microhabitat. To order to ensure food and nutritional security for growing population, a new strategy needs to be initiated for growing of crops in changing climatic condition. The country has a large pool of underutilized or underexploited fruit or cereals crops which have enormous potential for contributing to food security, nutrition, health, ecosystem sustainability under the changing climatic conditions, since they require little input, as they have inherent capabilities to withstand biotic and abiotic stress. Apart from the impacts on agronomic conditions of crop productions, climate change also affects the economy, food systems and wellbeing of the consumers (Abbade, 2017). Crop nutritional quality become very challenging, as we noticed that, zinc and iron deficiency is a serious global health problem in humans depending on cereal-diet and is largely prevalent in low-income countries like Sub-Saharan Africa, and South and South-east Asia. We report inefficiency of modern-bred cultivars of rice and wheat to sequester those essential nutrients in grains as the reason for such deficiency and prevalence (Debnath et al., 2021). Keeping in mind the crop yield and nutritional quality become very daunting task to our food security issue and this can overcome with the proper and time bound research in cognizance with the environment. Threat and challenges In recent years, climate change has become a debatable issue worldwide. South Asia will be one of the most adversely affected regions in terms of impacts of climate change on agricultural yield, economic activity and trading policies. Addressing climate change is central for global future food security and poverty alleviation. The approach would need to implement strategies linked with developmental plans to enhance its adaptive capacity in terms of climate resilience and mitigation. Over time, there has been a visible shift in the global climate change initiative towards adaptation. Adaptation can complement mitigation as a cost-effective strategy to reduce climate change risks. The impact of climate change is projected to have different effects across societies and countries. Mitigation and adaptation actions can, if appropriately designed, advance sustainable development and equity both within and across countries and between generations. One approach to balancing the attention on adaptation and mitigation strategies is to compare the costs and benefits of both the strategies. The most imminent change is the increase in the atmospheric temperatures due to increase levels of GHGs (Green House Gases) i.e. carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) etc into the atmosphere. The global mean annual temperatures at the end of the 20th

Gaining Acceptance of Novel Plant Breeding Technologies.

Water availability, access, and use has ensured food and livelihood security for millions. In the future, food and livelihood security may be challenged due to global environmental changes, particularly global climatic changes, that evidence has gradually shown to be appearing. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has projected that the global mean surface temperature will rise by 1.4–5.8°C by 2100 due to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. Climate variability is also projected to increase, leading to uncertainty in the onset of monsoons and more frequent extreme weather events, such as more severe droughts and floods. These environmental changes are known to affect all aspects of the hydrological cycle, which in turn may alter the balance between food demand and supply in time and space in many parts of the world. Regions such as South Asia and Africa are expected to be particularly vulnerable to these environmental changes due to their large population, predominance of agriculture, and limited resource base. The potential impact of climatic changes on the quality of fruits, vegetables, cereals and medicinal plants can have a negative impact on emerging trade opportunities for these commodities in many countries. To ensure future water and food security, greater attention is now needed on adaptations to climatic change, which calls for increased diversification, improved land use and natural resource management policies, increased use of biofuels, improved risk management through early warning systems and crop insurance, and wastewater recycling in agriculture.

In this chapter, a framework for best practice for climate change adaption in Africa is presented, predominantly from the water and natural resources perspective to systematically chart out ways for adaptive capacity building. Africa’s vulnerability to climate change and variability has direct impacts on water availability, access and use. Water is the source of food and livelihood security for millions of its population. The future of food and livelihood security is likely to be challenged due to global environmental changes, particularly global climatic changes, and emerging evidence has gradually demonstrated this fact. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has projected that global and regional surface temperature and precipitation are likely to change with mixed degrees of severity due to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and other anthropogenic gas emissions. There is high level of consensus on the likely effect of this on all aspects of the hydrological cycle, which in turn may alter the balance between water availability, food demand and supply in time and space in many parts of the world. Climate variability is also projected to increase, leading to uncertainty in the onset of rainy seasons and more frequent extreme weather events, such as more severe droughts and floods. Africa is particularly vulnerable to these environmental changes due to a predominance of rainfed agriculture, limited resource base and weak structural setups to monitor and mitigate climate changes. In the quest for future water and food security, greater attention must now be paid to adaptations to climatic change with a livelihood-centered approach of integrated natural resources and water management, which calls for increased diversification, improved land use and natural resource management interventions, increased use of renewable energy resources, improved risk management through early warning systems and crop insurance, and wastewater reuse for agriculture, among others.

Climate change, famine, and low-income communities challenge Sustainable Development Goals

Climate change will significantly impact the future viability and security of food production systems, with increased frequency and intensity of droughts, floods, storms and other extreme climatic events predicted in many regions. In order for food production systems to remain viable and resilient under a changing climate, novel approaches, which integrate risk management (i.e. adaptation) and risk transfer strategies, such as insurance, are required. We argue that the coordinated integration of risk management and risk transfer approaches will support greater resilience of food production systems under climate change. Conversely, if risk management and risk transfer strategies are not carefully integrated, there is potential to undermine adaptive capacity (e.g. insurance subsidies may dissuade farmers from investing in climate adaptation) and ultimately reduce the capacity of food production systems to cope with and recover from the adverse impacts of climate change. Here we propose a resilience-based conceptual framework for integrating risk management and risk transfer strategies along with four key principles, which we believe could underlie their successful integration and thus enhance food production system resilience under climate change. These are as follows: (1) pro-active investments in farmer climate adaptation rather than re-active disaster relief, (2) structuring of government subsidies around insurance and climate disaster relief to incentivise farmer climate adaptation, (3) rewarding farmer efforts towards climate adaptation with cheaper insurance premiums for those farmers that invest resources into climate adaptation and (4) recognising investments in the integration of farm climate adaptation and risk transfer schemes within the broader context of future climate disaster risk management and global food security. Such an integrated investment approach could substantially reduce future economic losses for farmers while also enhancing food security under climate change.

In recent years, the urgent issue of how climate change affects food security has emerged as a significant concern. This paper highlights the complex interplay between food security and global climate change by examining the role of climate change in the food system, the interrelationship between food security and global climate change, and adaptation strategies to address these challenges. With a comprehensive analysis focused on China, this study systematically examines the complex dynamics linking food security and global climate change. The findings reveal important insights: (1) Global climate change is exacerbating insecurity in the food system and increasing its impact on Chinese food production; (2) Food demand emerges as the main driver of global climate change, while redistribution of food production factors exacerbates the climate crisis. (3) A synergistic and sustainable response can be achieved through a multi-pronged approach to addressing global climate change while ensuring food security and micro level, resilience. To effectively combat global climate change and ensure food security, this study highlights the critical importance of using micro-technologies for grain storage, prioritizing ecological building, pursuing a market-based approach at the macro level, and improving the food policy framework. In the context of global climate change, this study argues for a paradigm shift in food security research and a transition from a singular disciplinary, dimensional, and resource-centered approach to a multidisciplinary, multifactorial, and systematic integration of research. This transformative approach aims to promote a low-carbon and efficient food system that’s resilient to the challenges of global climate change.

Food and water security: Analysis of integrated modeling platforms

Climate scientists agree that a) human activity is a significant driver of recent climate change, and b) climate change is a danger to humanity. However, the general public accepts the former point, but rejects the latter. Thus, climate experts and the general public diverge in their understanding of the relationship between humans and climate change. My dissertation examines the role of intuitive patterns of thinking in public perceptions of climate change. Of specific interest is construal-based thinking: intuitive frameworks that are generally useful in the context of everyday reasoning, but can engender systematic misconceptions in other scientific domains (e.g., biology). Results revealed that one such construal-anthropic thinking-is recruited when thinking about climate change and impacts global climate change understanding and engagement. Anthropic thinking is a set of intuitive frameworks that are united in their distortion of the relationship between humans and the natural world. Among these frameworks are exceptionalist thinking (i.e., thinking that humans are exceptional to, and unique from other species) and anthropomorphic thinking (i.e., the attribution of human properties to non-human organisms). I conducted four studies to examine whether undergraduates recruit anthropic thinking in the context of global climate change, and the consequences of reliance on such patterns of thinking. Study One examined construal-based thinking about global climate change using an in-lab battery designed for this purpose. I modified sets of pre-existing measures of construal-based thinking to inquire about climate change. Of the investigated construals, participants only consistently engaged in exceptionalist thinking about climate change which tended to involve the correct belief that humans are uniquely contributing to climate change and the incorrect belief that humans are uniquely impervious to the effects of climate change. Moreover, participants performed similarly on measures of exceptionalist thinking about climate change and biology-a domain that is understood to be susceptible to such patterns of thinking. Study Two tested whether individuals spontaneously engage in construal-based thinking about climate change by investigating patterns of language used during semi-structured interviews about climate change. Of the investigated construals, participants most commonly used anthropic patterns of language to describe climate change. Anthropomorphic language was particularly common, revealing that individuals attributed human qualities (e.g., emotions, goals) to non-human organisms (e.g., the Earth, plants and animals) when discussing climate change. Interestingly, the use of such language during these interviews predicted increased understanding of climate change, suggesting that use of anthropomorphic analogies might aid understandings. Further, participants used exceptionalist language when describing both causes and effects of climate change, corroborating findings from the first study. Study Three investigated the predictive role of anthropic thinking in understanding and concern surrounding global climate change. Using a time-pressured manipulation, I encouraged individuals to either respond quickly (preventing them from using more deliberate reasoning strategies) or slowly (allowing deliberate strategies) to a set of true/false questions about climate change. Surprisingly, exceptionalist and anthropomorphic thinking only predicted climate change understanding in the time delay condition, suggesting that anthropic thinking is not readily available to influence knowledge when individuals must make responses quickly, but rather, may represent a more deliberative reasoning heuristic. Furthermore, anthropomorphic thinking was positively associated with concern about global climate change across conditions. Combined with findings from Study Two, these demonstrate that anthropic thinking could have a role in both aiding and hindering understanding and engagement with climate change. Finally, Study Four investigated whether exceptionalist thinking about climate change could be reduced by increasing the salience of conceptual connections between humans and global climate change. To do so, I used a concept-mapping task wherein individuals drew connections between human-related concepts (e.g., burning fossil fuels) and global climate change. Participants who completed concepts maps at the beginning of the battery showed decreased exceptionalist thinking about climate change causes and effects compared to those who completed concept maps at the end of the battery, suggesting that exceptionalist thinking about climate change may rest on decreased salience that humans both a) play a role in causing climate change and b) will be affected by climate change. Exceptionalist thinking also predicted decreased attribution of damage due to recent environmental disasters (e.g., hurricanes Florence and Michael) to global climate change. This demonstrates a way in which exceptionalist thinking might act as a cognitive barrier to understanding how climate change can impact humans. This body of research extends previous investigations of intuitive thinking and scientific understandings to a novel and timely domain: global climate change. Notably, these findings demonstrate that people recruit exceptionalism and anthropomorphism when thinking about climate change, and that these patterns of thinking influence their understanding and engagement with the issue. I discuss the implications of these results for education, and their potential utility in the development of interventions to improve public perceptions of climate change as well as science more broadly.

Collectif Argos: Climate Refugees

Achieving food security while protecting the environment in the context of future global climate changes is a great challenge to the sustainability of modern agricultural systems. Food production is likely to maintain priority over environmental protection. In modern agriculture, input management is very crucial for sustaining future food security and environmental protection which might be achieved by the integration of land, pest, disease, nutrient, and other resource management practices. This chapter focuses on the potential of next-generation input management techniques for safer food production and environmental protection. The possible impacts of next-generation input management techniques for safer and nutritious food production without environmental degradation as along with other vital dimensions of food security have been discussed. Additionally, next-generation input assessment studies, possible integration of different techniques, and approaches for food and environment security have been objectively described.

Quantified global scenarios and projections are used to assess long-term future global food security under a range of socio-economic and climate change scenarios. Here, we conducted a systematic literature review and meta-analysis to assess the range of future global food security projections to 2050. We reviewed 57 global food security projection and quantitative scenario studies that have been published in the past two decades and discussed the methods, underlying drivers, indicators and projections. Across five representative scenarios that span divergent but plausible socio-economic futures, the total global food demand is expected to increase by 35% to 56% between 2010 and 2050, while population at risk of hunger is expected to change by -91% to +8% over the same period. If climate change is taken into account, the ranges change slightly (+30% to +62% for total food demand and -91% to +30% for population at risk of hunger) but with no statistical differences overall. The results of our review can be used to benchmark new global food security projections and quantitative scenario studies and inform policy analysis and the public debate on the future of food.

CRISPR/Cas9-based multiplexed editing of SlHyPRP1 resulted in precise deletions of its functional motif(s), thereby resulting in salt stress-tolerant events in cultivated tomato. Crop genetic improvement to address environmental stresses for sustainable food production has been in high demand, especially given the current situation of global climate changes and reduction of the global food production rate/population rate. Recently, the emerging clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein (Cas)-based targeted mutagenesis has provided a revolutionary approach to crop improvement. The major application of CRISPR/Cas in plant genome editing has been the generation of indel mutations via error-prone nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ) repair of DNA DSBs. In this study, we examined the power of the CRISPR/Cas9-based novel approach in the precise manipulation of protein domains of tomato hybrid proline-rich protein 1 (HyPRP1), which is a negative regulator of salt stress responses. We revealed that the precise elimination of SlHyPRP1 negative-response domain(s) led to high salinity tolerance at the germination and vegetative stages in our experimental conditions. CRISPR/Cas9-based domain editing may be an efficient tool to engineer multidomain proteins of important food crops to cope with global climate changes for sustainable agriculture and future food security.

Water sprays from an open fire hydrant in Brooklyn, New York, in the midst of a July 2010 heat wave that affected much of the eastern United States.In 2007 the New York City Department of Environmental Protection first teamed up with Alianza Dominicana, a Washington Heights community organization, to educate city residents about the appropriate use of fire hydrants and other ways

Utilizing Crop Wild Relatives to Combat Global Warming