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THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY: ASSESSING VULNERABILITIES, ADAPTATION STRATEGIES, AND FOOD SECURITY IMPLICATIONS
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Background
Climate change is increasing recognized as a global phenomenon with potentially far-reaching implications and associated with more frequent extreme weather events (Jha, & Dev, 2024). Poor people living in agricultural communities in developing countries are expected to be the most affected by these climatic changes (Ullah, & Akhtar, 2023). Developing countries are most vulnerable to climate change though they are only contributing 10% to the annual global carbon dioxide emissions South Asian countries are particularly affected because of the vast populations still dependent on predominantly agriculture-based rural economies and the vast number of poor people (Thomas, 2024). This poses serious challenges to their social, economic and ecological systems. The World Bank’s South Asia Climate Change Strategy reported similar concerns that the poorest people in the region will suffer the most from climate change because of unfavorable geography GDP (Narasimham & Subbarao, 2021).
Climate change (CC) is the most dangerous natural hazard that adversely affects agricultural production, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reveals the cause of CC is which means any changes in climate over time, environmental variation or anthropogenic activity (Yuan et al., 2024). The reason for CC is due to the increase of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) in the atmosphere, which results in accretion of GHGs effect. Agricultural sectors and CC are interlinked with each other on a global level, and their relationship is of particular importance as ever‐increasing inequality of the earth’s population and world food production (Ahmad et al., 2022). Some analysis reports say that temperature changes, precipitation and severe weather events are expected to reduce agricultural production in many regions of the low‐income or developing world, mainly Africa and parts of Asia (Gornall et al., 2019). Impacts and results of climate variability for agriculture tend to more dangerous for countries with higher initial temperature and regions with marginal or already degraded lands and low level of development with poor adaption capacity (Kergna, & Kennan, 2019). On the contrary, many studies revealed that present agricultural and its allied activities are a major source of GHG that make worse climate disruption (Reddy, 2023). The method of agriculture is varied between low‐income and high‐income countries, which are due to variation in agricultural contribution to CC. In low‐ income or underdeveloped countries, GHG emission from agriculture sector is much, and it is due to a large number of cattle and inadequate manure management, improper use of agrochemicals, and maladministration of the land. In turn, CC impact becomes more dangerous in developing countries because of its massive dependence on agriculture. For instance, an African country that is Ethiopia, agriculture supports the livelihoods of the great mass of people by providing 80% of employment, and it contributes 43% of the GDP (Narasimham & Subbarao, 2022).
On the other way, agricultural has a large potential to mitigate and adapt CC. According to IPCC (2021), mitigation is an interference to reduce the emissions sources or enhance the GHGs sinks, whereas adaptation is the adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic change or their effects to reduce harm or exploit beneficial opportunities. Organic agricultural and sustainable systems can help reduce agricultural GHG emissions through energy conservation, lower levels of carbon‐based inputs, lower use of synthetic fertilizer and other features that minimize GHG emissions, and sequester carbon in the soil (Negi, & Azeez, 2022). During mitigation and adaptation of CC through different agricultural activities, there might be many challenges or barriers such as financial, policy making, and its implementation. In general, the agricultural activity could be a source of GHGs as well as a sink, notably through the storage of carbon in the soil organic matter and in biomass and influenced by CC (Vasamsetti, Dumpala, & Subbarao, 2022).
