IS CLIMATE CHANGE A BIG THREAT TO AMERICAN AGRICULTURE?

IS CLIMATE CHANGE A BIG THREAT TO AMERICAN AGRICULTURE?

 

Climate change is on everyone's lips these days.  From nail biting environmentalist, to wily Congressmen who try to deny the whole lot to impress their base, to farmers who look apprehensively at the future and are not sure whom to believe.

But farmers should be the ones joining the debate first and foremost.  In fact they are the front line of climate change: the people who produce our food, and who eek their living from such work, should be the ones to worry the most.

Stats are in for 2012.  A staggering 80% of all farmland was under drought conditions during the past year.   Much like the dust bowl era or yesteryear, this issue has started to rankle the goverment's agricultural watchdogs, who are sounding the alarm loud and clear.

The U.S. Agriculture agency has issued a report that addresses the current crisis, because that is what it has become, and made a startling statement on its position on climate change:

"Climate change poses unprecented challenges to U.S. agriculture because of the sensitivity of agricultural productivity and costs to changing climate conditions."

Just two lines, twentyone words.  In this brief statement is expressed, unequivocally, the fear that is pervading the sector. If climate change had been a matter of squabbling or political posturing, the agricultural sector can no longer wait to address the problem.

The agency also stated frankly that they believe the climate change is human wrought, not some climatic shift bound to occur with the ages.  

The problems of climate change for farmers include more weeds, who thrive in adverse climate, and more insects, who also thrive in extreme conditions.  The other side of climate change, flooding, drought, less but intense rain, erosion, and storms coupled with earlier onset of the warm season, will make it harder to time the cultures for watering and other practices, thereby making yield results a guess at best.  And when the cultures go, so does the livestock.  The two are inexorably tied together.  Less yield is less feed, both for humans and for livestock. 

Reduced yields also mean costlier feed and food, and ultimately more famine.  

The next statement by the agency is even more revealing:

"U.S. climate will continue to change during the next century.  It is very likely that the amount of change will be significantly greater and the rate of change more rapid than that experienced during the last 100 years.  There will be more warm nights and longer periods of extreme heat, and the incidence of both droght and very heavy precipitation events is expected to increase."

 

Just like in bygone days, the department is trying to implement good farming practices that will offset some of the harshest conditions in the coming years, such as no-till framing, crop rotation and diversification, and cover cropping - a crop planted solely to manage soil fertility, quality and to manage weeds and pests without massive chemical intervention.

However, the agency warns that such 'good' farming practices are not enough to annull the severe changes that are prospected.  The agency recommends that carbon gas emission from power plants be reduced using the Clean Air rules.

Another problem that will curtail the agency's best efforts are the deep cuts in funding that Congress is seeking to the sector which will hamper research and operations for the suggested farming changes.

Source: Natural REsources Defence Council.