scholarly journals Climate Smart Crops for Food Security

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saima Rashid ◽  
Muhammad Bin Mushtaq ◽  
Iqra Farooq ◽  
Zulqurnain Khan

After ensuring the food security for over 50 years, the green revolution is eventually reaching its biological limits which are very much reflected by the ongoing stagnancy in yield increased over the past few decades. Meeting the increasing food demands due to increasing population is the greatest challenge for today’s plant scientists. Changing climatic conditions are posing additional threats to crop growth, productivity and yield. After successfully deploying gene editing to modify simple traits, scientists are now embarked on more ambitious adventures in genomics to combat challenges of food security in the wake of increasing population and climate change adversaries. The chapter outlines use of new technologies in tailoring crops beyond simple traits aiming to harvest the desired diversity lost during domestication and manipulating complex traits, which evolved over evolutionary timescale with special emphasis on the development of climate smart crops.

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 343-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vally Koubi

The link between climate change and conflict has been discussed intensively in academic literature during the past decade. This review aims to provide a clearer picture of what the research community currently has to say with regard to this nexus. It finds that the literature has not detected a robust and general effect linking climate to conflict onset. Substantial agreement exists that climatic changes contribute to conflict under some conditions and through certain pathways. In particular, the literature shows that climatic conditions breed conflict in fertile grounds: in regions dependent on agriculture and in combination and interaction with other socioeconomic and political factors such as a low level of economic development and political marginalization. Future research should continue to investigate how climatic changes interact with and/or are conditioned by socioeconomic, political, and demographic settings to cause conflict and uncover the causal mechanisms that link these two phenomena.


Author(s):  
Thomas A. Tweed

“How religion has changed,” looks at how the past shapes the present, and how responsible citizenship today requires some sense of history. Too often public discussions of the religious dimensions of policy issues either overlook the past or highlight recent years. But this shortened perspective makes it difficult to see what is new and what is not—and which problems, like climate change, economic inequality, and interreligious violence, are entangled in a longer past. Religion emerged long ago and has played a role in some of the big lifeway transitions—from foraging to farming to factories. There are four altered ways of imagining (new metaphors), making (new technologies), performing (new rituals), and gathering (new communities)—and the with these, there are challenges that accompanied each new religious habitat.


2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Savita Ahlawat ◽  
Dhian Kaur

At present, climate change is one of the most challenging environmental issues as it poses potential threat to different sectors of economy at global level. Agriculture being an open activity is primarily dependent on climatic factors and change in climatic conditions affects the production, quality and quantity of crop production in an area. This paper attempts to study effects of only two parameters of climate i.e. temperature and rainfall on agricultural production in northwest region of India. Northwest region comprising of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu Kashmir states is the greatest food bowl of India contributing to its food security. The analysis of mean monthly rainfall and maximum and minimum temperatures (1901-2006) shows no significant change in temperature and rainfall conditions from 1901 to 1960; but afterward the change is more pronounced. On the whole any significant change in climatic conditions will not only challenge the food production of the region but also challenge the country’s food security situation.


2013 ◽  
Vol 723 ◽  
pp. 617-622
Author(s):  
Er Hu Yan ◽  
Fu Pu Li ◽  
Rong Ma ◽  
Fei Chen

Climate change is one of the most key global topics well-known in international community. Over the past decades years, the change climate and its impact on asphalt pavement in China is very obvious. Many expressways of asphalt pavement come forth severe rutting failure during only a few days of extensive, long-lasting, extreme heat wave in summer, which resulting in the change of asphalt cement specification and the selection practice of asphalt cement. So it is necessary to review climate change and its impact in the past, and forecast the probable situation in the future. The paper focuses specifically on the issue of asphalt binder selection under changing climatic conditions.


Author(s):  
N.V. Danilova

The signals of global warming are now being observed throughout the world. Data of hydrometeorological centres show a significant increase of temperature in many regions accompanied by intense frequency of dry periods. Some substantial and direct effects of climate change may be already noticed at present time. Over the next several decades they will be observed in agriculture. Increase of temperature and reduction of precipitation volumes will probably lead to decrease the level of yield. These changes can significantly affect the global food security. Ukraine is known for its fertile soil and agricultural products, so it has a huge agricultural potential, contributing, in fact, to the global food security. However, the observed weather changes, increase of average temperature and uneven distribution of rainfalls can result in sharp transformation of most of agricultural and climatic zones of Ukraine. According to international processes there is an urgent need for improvement of adaptation to climate change of some branches of national economy of Ukraine, including of agriculture. Expanding the range of types of millet used in agricultural production is an economically feasible process that should be implemented in view of significant climate changes resulting in global warming which is widely discussed in scientific literature. Rapid introduction in crop shifts of the millet that is able to withstand recurring periodic droughts, especially in the southern regions, is one of the ways allowing to overcome the consequences of such extreme conditions. Conditions of the southern regions are favourable for millet crop. Millet is one of the most drought-resistant and heat-resistant crops that can sustain heat injuries and seizures and this is very important for arid areas during dry years, when other crops significantly reduce the level of yield. We studied changes of agro-climatic resources and agro-climatic conditions for formation of millet productivity for various periods of time. The analysis of climate change trend was performed through comparing of data as per climatic scenarios A2 and A1B and of average long-term characteristics of climatic and agro-climatic indicators. The comparative description of millet productivity under the conditions of climate change as per average long-term data (1986-2005) and as per scenarios A2 and A1B of climate change (2011-2030 and 2031-2050) was also performed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karmen Erjavec ◽  
Emil Erjavec

AbstractThe periodic reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) are announced each time by a strategic document in the form of a Communication by the European Commission (EC). The content of the last Communication differs from previous ones, which raises the questions of what frames the EC has employed with respect to its CAP reforms and how these frames have been modified over the past 26 years (from 1991 to 2017) in order to legitimise the preservation of the CAP. This paper tries to fill the gap in the research of frames in the main strategic documents on the CAP by employing comparative historical framing analysis. The results show consistent use of five frames: the policy mechanism frame, farmers’ economic frame, foreign trade frame, budgetary frame, and the societal concerns frame. While they have all remained in use, most have been changed significantly over the years. Throughout the analysed period, the farmers’ economic frame has retained its primacy and continuity, demonstrating the power of the farmers’ lobbies and conservative member states. If in the initial Communications the environment was barely present within the societal concerns frame, it has gained importance in the recent Communications, in addition to other general societal issues, such as climate change, food security and quality, health, digitalisation, innovation, and even migration. By marginalising the policy mechanism frame and replacing it with the implementation model and increasingly emphasising the societal concerns frame with social justifications of the CAP, the EC is trying to legitimise the CAP after 2021.


2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (4I-II) ◽  
pp. 561-588 ◽  
Author(s):  
Munir Ahmad Gattoo ◽  
Ghulam Mustafa ◽  
Muhammad Iqbal

The study used data from 3298 food crop growers in Pakistan. Potential outcome treatment effects model was applied to evaluate the impact of adaptations on household food security. A household Food Security Index (FSI) was constructed applying Principle Component Analysis (PCA). Adaptation strategies employed by the farmers in response to climate change were categorised into four groups namely: changes in sowing time (C1); input intensification (C2); water and soil conservation (C3); and changes in varieties (C4). Out of 15 mutually exclusive combinations constructed for evaluation, only 7 combinations were considered for estimating the treatment effects models because of limited number of observations in other cases. Results of only two of the 7 are discussed in the paper, as the other 5 had very small number of adapters and the impact measures shown either insignificant results or had opposite signs. The first (C1234) combined all the four, while the second (C234) combined the last three strategies. The results suggest that the households which adapted to climate changes were statistically significantly more food secure as compared to those who did not adapt. The results further show that education of the male and female heads, livestock ownership, the structure of house—both bricked and having electricity facility, crops diversification, and non-farm income are among the factors, which raise the food security of farm households and their impacts are statistically significant. The variables which are significantly negatively associated with the food security levels include age of the head of household, food expenditure management, households having less than 12.5 acres of land— defined as marginal (cultivate 6.25 to 12.5 acres). Farmers of cotton-wheat, rice-wheat, and rain-fed cropping systems are found to be more food secure as compared to the farmers working in the mixed cropping systems where farm holdings are relatively small and high use of tube-well water adding to salinity of soils. It is crucial to invest in the development of agricultural technological packages, addressing issues of climate change relevant to different ecologies and farming systems; improve research-extension-farmer linkages; enhance farmers‘ access to new technologies; improve rural infrastructure; development of weather information system linking meteorological department, extension and farmers; and establishment of targeted food safety nets as well as farm subsidy programs for marginal farm households.


2006 ◽  
Vol 144 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. P. REYNOLDS ◽  
N. E. BORLAUG

Despite the successes of the Green Revolution, about a billion people are still undernourished and food security in the developing world faces new challenges in terms of population growth, reduced water resources, climate change and decreased public sector investment. It is also becoming widely recognized that poverty is a cause of environmental degradation, conflict and civil unrest. Internationally coordinated agricultural research can play a significant role in improving food security by deploying promising new technologies as well as adapting those with well-established impact.In addition to the genetic challenges of crop improvement, agriculturalists must also embrace the problems associated with a highly heterogeneous and unpredictable environment. Not only are new genetic tools becoming more accessible, but a new generation of quantitative tools are available to enable better definition of agro-ecosystems, of cultivar by environment interactions, and of socio-economic issues, while satellite imagery can help predict crop yields on large scales. Identifying areas of low genetic diversity – for example as found in large tracts of South Asia – is an important aspect of reducing vulnerability to disease epidemics. Global strategies for incorporating durable disease resistance genes into a wider genetic background, as well as participatory approaches that deliver a fuller range of options to farmers, are being implemented to increase cultivar diversity.The unpredictable effects of environment on productivity can be buffered somewhat by crop management practices that maintain healthy soils, while reversing the consequences of rapid agricultural intensification on soil degradation. Conservation agriculture is an alternative strategy that is especially pertinent for resource-poor farmers.The potential synergy between genetic improvement and innovative crop management practices has been referred to as the Doubly Green Revolution. The unique benefits and efficiency of the international collaborative platform are indisputable when considering the duplications that otherwise would have been required to achieve the same impacts through unilateral or even bilateral programmes. Furthermore, while the West takes for granted public support for crucial economic and social issues, this is not the case in a number of less-developed countries where the activities of International Agricultural Research Centres (IARCs) and other development assistance organizations can provide continuity in agricultural research and infrastructure.


2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-112
Author(s):  
Bruce Prideaux

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to briefly review the development of drive tourism in the past 75 years, highlight contemporary issues that will shape the structure of drive tourism in the near future and speculate on how drive tourism may develop in future decades. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on a range of academic and grey literature to identify the major trends that are now emerging in the drive tourism sector. These trends form the basis for observations on how new and emerging technologies such as autonomous vehicles may offer new drive tourism opportunities in coming decades. Findings Recent and near-future advances in automobile technologies, including propulsion and control, are likely to radically alter the structure and operation of drive tourism, offering new opportunities for participation in this form of tourism. The paper observes that the tourism industry must act in a proactive rather than reactive manner if it is to maximise the opportunities that will emerge “from” the coming period of climate change and technology-generated disruption. Social implications Drive tourism has opened many previously remote areas for tourism bringing benefits such as employment and business opportunities. However, the growth of drive tourism may also have social costs including disruption to local social norms as people migrate into and out of these areas in search of new economic opportunities. Future developments in drive tourism may create similar disruptions. Originality/value Despite the size and value of the global drive tourism market, academic investigation has been limited. The value of this paper lies in its identification of a range of issues that need further research, including the need to rethink the structure of drive tourism and how new technologies and future responses to climate change may affect this sector.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 844 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Simon ◽  
Maria Montero ◽  
Óscar Bermudez

In contrast with international food assistance programs, or with the new green revolution based on the sustainable intensification of agriculture, this work proposes an agroecological technology to overcome food insecurity problems in countries like Nicaragua, most especially in rural areas. In particular, it analyzes the effects of implementing the biointensive method—an agroecological food production initiative that is highly labor-intensive, but requires little land—in various communities of the Dry Corridor in Nicaragua. This project is the result of establishing an international consortium for development cooperation where grassroots communities played a prominent role. The main results are an improvement in local food security and a strengthening of the communities’ capacity to face major challenges arising from poverty and climate change, the effects of which are increasingly noticeable in Central America. The main weakness identified is that the necessary tropicalization of the method has not been sufficiently tested, for a two-year period is too short a time to transform the prevailing rural development dynamics significantly.


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