Decentralizing the food system will be unavoidable because the large scale agroindustry that supports monoculture will not be able to survive the losses of water, soil, yields. Already, food production and security on the global scale is insured by small, family farmers. These produce quality foods on very small land surfaces. Their garden/farms are biologically diverse and integrate also medicinal plants, herbs as they learned from their ancestors. Conserving this knowledge is very important because our centralized food system and agriculture have become very homogeneous. Consequently, preserving seed germplasm and breeds of domestic animals is now becoming more and more important to counteract the whims of unpredictable weather patterns. Therefore, agroecology, which is the science of sustainable food systems will gain more traction in the restoration/regenerative type of agriculture that all countries in the world need to insure food security despite global climate change.

It will be changed with climatic changes

Agricultural and food security under climate change requires changes in many levels. Three impacts are worth categorizing: Changing rainfall, changing temperature, and sea level rise. Low precipitation can focus on drought tolerant crops and water conservation. High precipitation areas can have water quality issues and flood damage. This farming should incorporate resilience measures for these impacts. For temperature increases, loss of soil moisture and increasing ET is expected and thus a choice of land cover that adapts to this will be useful. Sea level rise often affects coastal farming that need adaptation methods or moving away from the coastal floods. In addition to thee adaptations, markets and institutions could design policies for increasing adaptation to these changes. This is a large area and I just touched some salient ones.

Reduce urban sprawl and protect those soils that are most productive without adding fertilizers from building activities

Decentralizing the food system will be unavoidable because the large scale agroindustry that supports monoculture will not be able to survive the losses of water, soil, yields. Already, food production and security on the global scale is insured by small, family farmers. These produce quality foods on very small land surfaces. Their garden/farms are biologically diverse and integrate also medicinal plants, herbs as they learned from their ancestors. Conserving this knowledge is very important because our centralized food system and agriculture have become very homogeneous. Consequently, preserving seed germplasm and breeds of domestic animals is now becoming more and more important to counteract the whims of unpredictable weather patterns. Therefore, agroecology, which is the science of sustainable food systems will gain more traction in the restoration/regenerative type of agriculture that all countries in the world need to insure food security despite global climate change.

Good subject to discuss, waiting to hear from our colleagues.

Food crops of the future need not be more land-based agriculture; it is more likely that owing to land and water shortage it would be more water-based crops, coming under Aquaculture. I shall refer more to aquaculture to indicate how climate change effects of the future. The main change would be the increase in temperature of the medium/ water and consequent volume and water level rise, the latter especially evident in coastal marine and estuarine environment. Since the seas occupy about 3/4 the global surface salt water and its denizens (fishes (sensu lato)) & aquatic weeds), which humans exploit for world's food and other needs, hitherto less exploited, open-sea and coastal, including estuaries, can be expected to be the greater provider of human food in the future.

Water temperature, salinity and depth (sea-level rise) would be the major factors which directly affect biological functions, such as growth and reproduction and indirectly food production under the influence of climate change.

The water resources and food production are immensely affaected by the climate change and these factors also responsible for the existance of our life. The judicious water management is the need of the day because the present trend is revealimg the rapid depletion in ground water levels. It is suggested that we must develop a strategy to face the natural calamities.

Precision agriculture/SA/CA/OC are the weapons to tackle the CC situation

Climate change has been generated by several factors that interact with each other, not only is it an ecological issue, the errors in the economic, social and political systems have been the cause. There are several documentaries in which they analyze the areas in which we must make changes: decrease the consumption of meat, opt for agroforestry systems, use more environmentally friendly energy, have a comprehensive educational system, strengthen democracy, choose an economy more solidary, etc. I think we should work on the causes, not just try to adapt to the problem.

I agree with you Juana! In addition to your well thought points I would add also that reducing food waste (at least in the industrialized countries) should become an imperative agenda to pursue. Increasing food production is not as important as avoiding food spoilage or insuring access and better distribution of food.

To develop drought tolerant crop, to prevent soil loss (to add proper additions such as PAM that increase soil stability and prevent evaporation as well, to avoid over cultivation etc.), to monitor the soil aggregation (there are simple methods), construction of desalination facilities, "thinking about others"sharing water between countries; Transfer of water from one country to another country (the one with the surplus will transfer to the country with the lack).

I think just as Climate Change is being brought upon us, the Human Beings ability to adapt to changing external conditions is also there.There may be some lag in implementation of mitigation mechanisms, but the technologies are already there & will get adopted. The doomsday prophets have always been there, but man has found reasonable solutions to handle before the doomsday.

The position in front of the climate change must focus on:

1. Implement new technologies for improvement in search of crops, less demanding in water and with high nutritional quality, among others.

2. Generate products that adapt to this new global climate change scenario.

3. Potentiate the current areas of cultivation, contact management to ensure production for a population in constant growth.

There will be a northward shift of certain agricultural activities, particularly in relation to the global boreal areas. i.e. crops that are now being grown along lattitude 60 will in the future be grown more along lattitude 70 (depending as well on some local factoring of soils and precipitation changes). The evidence of this is from global climate modelling in the area of temperature and precipitation study. So farming and food security policy will need to take this into account and institue apropriate measures.

See: Article Northward shift of the agricultural climate zone under 21-ce...

An all important question but technology and changing agricultural practices are not the critical solutions to global food security in response to climate change. The weak link is the control and power over agriculture by private financial institutions that control agriculture profits squeezing all but the largest conglomerate farms, that controls water rights, markets, pricing, distribution and dictating farming techniques. Excessive profit over sustainability is therefore the structure we are attempting to live by and as a result adjustments to climate change become impractical.

We need to change our consumption behaviors from now! No doubt. We must involve ourselves in the production of our own food, individually, but above all by community through urban agriculture, which must be highly efficient and technologically equipped to fully meet the food needs of people.

The answer needs a clear geographical basis. climate change has a large number of expressions. depending on the area of the world, they can be very different. there will be a lot of changes. Probably the key issue is related to fresh water. important and salinization of soils. this is what is now incredibly fast in the Crimea. soil will be destroyed in 5-6 years. The cause of the crisis is political, but the consequences are ecological.

Dmitry...your comment is spot-on correct. Many brackish and freshwater marshes around the world are becoming stressed by soil-water salinity increaseing at rates faster than vegetative communities can adapt. The result is a lost of plant vigor, root growth and soil strength degradation resulting in increased rates of erosion, and massive amounts of wetland loss especially during storm events.

Based on different scenario we will expect different impacts and of curse needs different response. Look at IPCC reports

James,

There is no doubt that ecosystems have begun a very rapid change. The increase in temperature changes a lot. It accelerates certain processes and actually changes them. This is a novelty for many territories.

Example. Ukraine is becoming a bit of Africa. I mean the south of Ukraine. I lived in Southern Africa for seven years and saw what was happening there. The flow of water from Ukraine was stopped in the Crimea. The water ran through the canal. In response, the new authorities of the Crimea began to extract ground fresh water. Only two years and began a catastrophic changes. Salinization of groundwater and soil. About politics will be forgotten quickly. Saline soils will remain for tens or hundreds (?) years.

I looked at your work on Louisiana. There is probably a particularly vulnerable system. Climate change, rising ocean level and total misunderstanding of the nature of the problem can change the ecology of this area. It's a pity. It is difficult to say what can be done.

Dmitry,

Yes it's a difficult problem here in Louisiana and causing much controversy. I am somewhat encouraged because the scientific understanding of what is happening is becoming more and more part of the general population. As the problems become more clear, hopefully the way forward will also become more clear.

Thanks for your good work...it all adds up.

Education may be key to assist with the management of this upcoming challenge. At the same time when I think that the human population will be greater than 9 billions by the end of this century and that most of these people live in cities I think that think efforts to grow food in urban areas should increase. This could contribute also to spur a decentralization of the food market, which is very much needed to conserve natural resources.

Here are some general remarks on climate change and its effects over time on especially humans:

t would be easier to look at the variables of climate change (CC), dividing the effects on land (about 1/4 of earth’s expanse) and water (the rest 3/4) separately. The effects on the terrestrial system (in contrast to the aquatic system of the world) can be compared; often we consider the terrestrial system as more important, and it might be so for the present and near future, but it might change over time, when human population will increase and might explode unless human wisdom stems this expansion, especially over the distant Future (surely the distant future of humanity should be as important to us as the Present, though the perspectives could be different). We can depend for the food and other requirements of humans and animals on land as well as freshwater and sea water through agricultural crops, forests, fisheries as well as aquaculture. The major effects of CC will be thermal and consequences of thermal change on the ambient medium, water soil or air. Temperature is the master ecological factor; it affects the physical and biological effects of the rest of the environmental factors also through its interactions. Temperature might be the most important ecological variable in the context of CC.

Farming & Food Security will be under serious stress.

Yes, Murray! I totally agree

Hi my friends.. I think that it should be named "the climate fluctuations" in the short term and longterm scale simultanously, because climate change term has beyond the mentioned definition...

Regards

Farhang

will decrease by 20% in year 2050 and the water resources will also decline by 6 - 10%.

We need to develop and practice a "cleaner" form of agriculture. One that is more conservative of resources, ecological and restorative. Food waste is unacceptable and food equality and sovereignty are sacrosanct human rights. More people will become engaged in food production and this may take place even on small land parcels through intensive methods and appropriate technologies that adapted to specific geographic and pedologic regions will retain productivity for local markets.

There will be positive as well as negative impact of climate change....Smart agriculture plays the key role in both the above said conditions

The participants' views are appreciable.

Many adaptation strategies have already been developed to overcome the conditions of increased temperature; salinity; variations in rainfall distribution and also water scarcity like:

Micro Irrigation practices (water conservation)

Change in cropping type

Salt tolerant crops

Drought tolerant crops

Flood tolerant crops

Plastics in agriculture (control evaporation and conveyance losses)

Crop Insurance ; etc.

Only creating awareness among the farmers is to be further improved for better results.

There is a proverb "morning shows the days". The present status of farming is showing the future. Already developed short duration crops, saline, drought, flood tolerant varieties. Then Water saving techniques are practicing in developed countries and adopting in developing areas. Now farming systems are more advancing in control environment and I think it will be adopt more day by day in developing countries.

Climate change is a big issue, considered as serious threat to the livelihood of Indian economy. Increase in temperature, variation in rainfall affect the crop yield and farming. Water saving technologies like laser leveling, direct seeded rice, zero tillage, rain water harvesting etc. should be follow to tackle alarming situation for livelihood security and sustainable agriculture.

I agree to Lakhwinder Kaur's Reply because climate change is a big issue ahead, rather it has already started affecting crops.

Today globally enough food in produced to provide enough to everybody. That people suffer food insecurity has more to do with access (food prices) rather than availability. Climate change can have negative impacts on access (increasing the price for food); here it must be safeguarded that people earn enough to afford enough and quality-wise the right food. Removal of poverty thus is at least equally important than enhancement of food production.