scholarly journals Climate change through the farming systems lens: challenges and opportunities for farming in Australia

2012 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Hayman ◽  
Lauren Rickards ◽  
Richard Eckard ◽  
Deirdre Lemerle
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Farming Systems ◽  
Farming System ◽  
Rural Sociology ◽  
System Level ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Emerging Issues ◽  
Reduce Emissions

Adaptation to and mitigation of climate change in Australian agriculture has included research at the plant, animal, and soil level; the farming system level; and the community and landscape level. This paper focuses on the farming systems level at which many of the impacts of a changing climate will be felt. This is also the level where much of the activity relating to adaptation and mitigation can usefully be analysed and at which existing adaptive capacity provides a critical platform for further efforts. In this paper, we use a framework of nested hierarchies introduced by J. Passioura four decades ago to highlight the need for research, development and extension (RDE) on climate change at the farming systems level to build on more fundamental soil, plant, and animal sciences and to link into higher themes of rural sociology and landscape science. The many questions asked by those managing farming systems can be categorised under four broad headings: (1) climate projections at a local scale, (2) impacts of climate projections on existing farming systems, (3) adaptation options, and (4) risks and opportunities from policies to reduce emissions. These questions are used as a framework to identify emerging issues for RDE in Australian farming systems, including the complex balance in on-farm strategies between adapting to climate change and reducing greenhouse gas concentrations. Climate is recognised as one of the defining features of different farming systems in Australia. It follows that if the climate changes, farming systems will have to shift, adapt, or be transformed into a different land use. Given that Australian farming systems have been adaptive in the past, we address the question of the extent to which research on adaptation to climate change in farming systems is different or additional to research on farming systems in a variable climate.

scholarly journals Challenges and opportunities to reduce uncertainty in projections of future atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub>: a combined marine and terrestrial biosphere perspective

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 2083-2153 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Dalmonech ◽  
A. M. Foley ◽  
A. Anav ◽  
P. Friedlingstein ◽  
A. D. Friend ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Performance Metrics ◽  
Model Performance ◽  
Atmospheric Co2 ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
The One ◽  
Earth System Models ◽  
Made In

Abstract. Atmospheric CO2 and climate projections for the next century vary widely across current Earth system models (ESMs), owing to different representations of the interactions between the marine and land carbon cycle on the one hand, and climate change and increasing atmospheric CO2 on the other hand. Several efforts have been made in the last years to analyse these differences in detail in order to suggest model improvements. Here we review these efforts and analyse their successes, but also the associated uncertainties that hamper the best use of the available observations to constrain and improve the ESMs models. The aim of this paper is to highlight challenges in improving the ESMs that result from: (i) uncertainty about important processes in terrestrial and marine ecosystems and their response to climate change and increasing atmospheric CO2; (ii) structural and parameter-related uncertainties in current land and marine models; (iii) uncertainties related to observations and the formulations of model performance metrics. We discuss the implications of these uncertainties for reducing the spread in future projections of ESMs and suggest future directions of work to overcome these uncertainties.

scholarly journals Historical Transition of a Farming System towards Industrialization: A Danish Agricultural Case Study Comparing Sustainability in the 1840s and 2019

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 12926
Author(s):  
Nele Lohrum ◽  
Morten Graversgaard ◽  
Chris Kjeldsen
Keyword(s):  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Farming Systems ◽  
Farming System ◽  
System Level ◽  
High Productivity ◽  
Historical Transition ◽  
Farm System ◽  
Over Time

A Danish pre-industrial farming system is reconstructed and compared to its modern industrialized farming system equivalent to evaluate agricultural performance in a sustainability perspective. The investigated Danish farm system and its contributing elements have undergone significant transformations. The intensity of contemporary agriculture shows that high productivity levels have been achieved by increasing the input of energy using modern machinery. At the same time, the energy efficiency (calculations based on energetic indicators) diminishes over time as the degree of dependence on fossil fuels increases. The results from this study show significant changes in the farming system, specifically inputs from agricultural land use, livestock, and energy systems. From being highly circular, the system changed to being a clear linear farming system with highly increased productivity but less efficient at the same time, questioning the relationship between productivity and efficiency and resource utilization in modern farming systems. Through utilizing an agroecological historical approach by comparing system performance over time, the results offer opportunities to explore how agricultural farming systems evolve over time and help to describe the complexity of the system level in a sustainability perspective.

Development of climate smart agriculture in Africa.

2022 ◽  
pp. 17-65
Author(s):  
Rachid Mrabet ◽  
Rachid Moussadek
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Gender Equity ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Food System ◽  
Farming Systems ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Agricultural Potential ◽  
Smart Agriculture

Abstract Climate change, food system complexity and changing international demands are creating new realities, challenges and opportunities. In this respect, unlocking Africa's agricultural potential is both a vital and a daunting aspiration to achieve commitments to the climate and development of the visionary and optimistic framework of Agenda 2063. In response to these challenges and drivers, climate smart agriculture (CSA) was promoted by governments and international organizations to functionally contribute to reducing vulnerability and increasing adaptation to climate change while ensuring sustainable progress in living standards, value chains and mitigation capacities of farming systems. Remarkable benefits in terms of increased productivity and performances of farming systems, enhanced farmers' resilience, environment and value chain sustainability, and developments of CSA in Africa and lock-in barriers exclusion are under way. These are because of investment in policy formulation and planning, approaches, alliances, incentives, capacity development, research, knowledge sharing, networking and engagement in bold regional and local initiatives. Side benefits from CSA are numerous for Africans in general and for producers and growers in particular. They include poverty alleviation through green growth, just and ethical transformation, gender equity and empowerment, shared prosperity and entrepreneurship via innovation. Overall, investing in CSA and particularly in Conservation Agriculture may greatly enhance a country's strategic thinking and capacity to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Climate change and shifting land-use: consequences for smallholder agroforestry systems and rural livelihoods in the southwest Ethiopian Highlands.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olef Koch ◽  
Pierre L. Ibisch ◽  
Ralf Bloch
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Changes ◽  
Rural Livelihoods ◽  
Farming Systems ◽  
Farming System ◽  
Agroforestry Systems ◽  
Crop Failure ◽  
Climate Resilience ◽  
Cereal Fields

Abstract Applying a Regional Integrated Vulnerability Assessment (RIVAS), this study aims to identify local farming system characteristics, their climate change vulnerability and how they are affected by current land use changes. Results show that the assessed farming systems' multifunctionality is essential to rural livelihoods whilst sustaining crop and tree diversity. While dry season crop diversity drives household's sufficiency and capacity to respond to crop failure, medium-low productivity in more than a third of the assessed systems, and soil degradation in cereal fields lessen adaptive capacity. For their contribution to climate resilience diverse and perennial cropping regimes should be promoted and maintained.

scholarly journals Climate Change and Organic Agriculture

2009 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 116-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ram Chandra Khanal
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Organic Agriculture ◽  
Farming Systems ◽  
N2o Emission ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Conventional Agriculture ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Agriculture And Environment ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Ch4 And N2o

This paper attempts to explore some research findings focusing on the climate change impact on (organic) agriculture and agriculture impact on climate change through a literature review. This review reveals that climate change and agriculture are closely linked and interdependent. Compared to conventional agriculture, organic agriculture is reported to be more efficient and effective both in reducing GHGs (CO2, CH4 and N2O) emission mainly due to the less use of chemical fertilizers and fossil fuel. Organic agriculture also reported to be climate change resilience farming systems as it promotes the proper management of soil, water, biodiversity and local knowledge there by acting as a good options for adaptation to climate change. But, due to lack of proper research, the contribution of organic agriculture for climate change adaptation and mitigation is yet to be known in the Nepalese context. It is argued that organic agriculture positively contributes to offset negative impacts of climate change, but there is inadequate systematic data to substantiate this fact.Key words: Adaptation; Climate change; Greenhouse gases mitigation; Organic agriculture; etc.The Journal of Agriculture and Environment Vol:10, Jun.2009 Page: 116-127

scholarly journals Quantifying the Likelihood of Regional Climate Change: A Hybridized Approach

2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (10) ◽  
pp. 3394-3414 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Adam Schlosser ◽  
Xiang Gao ◽  
Kenneth Strzepek ◽  
Andrei Sokolov ◽  
Chris E. Forest ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Massachusetts Institute Of Technology ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Institute Of Technology

Abstract The growing need for risk-based assessments of impacts and adaptation to climate change calls for increased capability in climate projections: specifically, the quantification of the likelihood of regional outcomes and the representation of their uncertainty. Herein, the authors present a technique that extends the latitudinal projections of the 2D atmospheric model of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Integrated Global System Model (IGSM) by applying longitudinally resolved patterns from observations, and from climate model projections archived from exercises carried out for the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The method maps the IGSM zonal means across longitude using a set of transformation coefficients, and this approach is demonstrated in application to near-surface air temperature and precipitation, for which high-quality observational datasets and model simulations of climate change are available. The current climatology of the transformation coefficients is observationally based. To estimate how these coefficients may alter with climate, the authors characterize the climate models’ spatial responses, relative to their zonal mean, from transient increases in trace-gas concentrations and then normalize these responses against their corresponding transient global temperature responses. This procedure allows for the construction of metaensembles of regional climate outcomes, combining the ensembles of the MIT IGSM—which produce global and latitudinal climate projections, with uncertainty, under different global climate policy scenarios—with regionally resolved patterns from the archived IPCC climate model projections. This hybridization of the climate model longitudinal projections with the global and latitudinal patterns projected by the IGSM can, in principle, be applied to any given state or flux variable that has the sufficient observational and model-based information.

scholarly journals Adaptation to climate change and variability: a case of direct seeded rice in Andhra Pradesh, India

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 419-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krishna Reddy Kakumanu ◽  
Gurava Reddy Kotapati ◽  
Udaya Sekhar Nagothu ◽  
Palanisami Kuppanan ◽  
Suresh Reddy Kallam
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Supply ◽  
Andhra Pradesh ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
System Level ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Active Involvement ◽  
Climate Change And Variability ◽  
Direct Seeded

Abstract Farmers, researchers and policy-makers are increasingly concerned about the potential impacts of climate change. Researchers are using various climate models to assess the impacts and identifying relevant alternative adaptation strategies to mitigate climate change. In India, rice is the major cereal crop grown and is influenced due to climate change and variability, inadequate water supply, labour shortage and methane emissions from rice ecosystems. This necessitates adoption action and upscaling of key adaption strategies like direct seeded rice (DSR) using validated data from rice growing areas in India. The study used experimental data of 2010–2014 and field survey data of DSR and non-DSR farmers collected during 2014. Results show that DSR method has incurred less tillage and labour costs by eluding puddling and transplantation by labour. Large-scale adoption of DSR was observed during 2012–2015 in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh. This was mainly due to the delayed monsoon and water supply, reduction in cost of cultivation, capacity building of stakeholders and their active involvement in awareness and training programmes. The study has demonstrated that integrated extension approach in technology dissemination and scaling-out through stakeholder integration is crucial. However, a mission mode framework is needed for technology upscaling at system level.

Synergies between the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change in agriculture

2010 ◽  
Vol 148 (5) ◽  
pp. 543-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. SMITH ◽  
J. E. OLESEN
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Crop Rotations ◽  
Soil Carbon Storage ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Mitigation Potential ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Change Context ◽  
Reduce Emissions

SUMMARYThere is a very significant, cost effective greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation potential in agriculture. The annual mitigation potential in agriculture is estimated to be 4200, 2600 and 1600 Mt CO2 equiv/yr at C prices of 100, 50 and 20 US$/t CO2 equiv, respectively. The value of GHG mitigated each year is equivalent to 420 000, 130 000 and 32 000 million US$/yr for C prices of 100, 50 and 20 US$/t CO2 equiv, respectively. From both the mitigation and economic perspectives, we cannot afford to miss out on this mitigation potential.The challenge of agriculture within the climate change context is two-fold, both to reduce emissions and to adapt to a changing and more variable climate. The primary aim of the mitigation options is to reduce emissions of methane or nitrous oxide or to increase soil carbon storage. All the mitigation options, therefore, affect the carbon and/or nitrogen cycle of the agroecosystem in some way. This often not only affects the GHG emissions but also the soil properties and nutrient cycling. Adaptation to increased variability of temperature and rainfall involves increasing the resilience of the production systems. This may be done by improving soil water holding capacities through adding crop residues and manure to arable soils or by adding diversity to the crop rotations.Though some mitigation measures may have negative impacts on the adaptive capacity of farming systems, most categories of adaptation options for climate change have positive impacts on mitigation. These include: (1) measures that reduce soil erosion, (2) measures that reduce leaching of nitrogen and phosphorus, (3) measures for conserving soil moisture, (4) increasing the diversity of crop rotations by choices of species or varieties, (5) modification of microclimate to reduce temperature extremes and provide shelter, (6) land use change involving abandonment or extensification of existing agricultural land, or avoidance of the cultivation of new land. These adaptation measures will in general, if properly applied, reduce GHG emissions, by improving nitrogen use efficiencies and improving soil carbon storage.There appears to be a large potential for synergies between mitigation and adaptation within agriculture. This needs to be incorporated into economic analyses of the mitigation costs. The inter-linkages between mitigation and adaptation are, however, not very well explored and further studies are warranted to better quantify short- and long-term effects on suitability for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. In order to realize the full potential for agriculture in a climate change context, new agricultural production systems need to be developed that integrate bioenergy and food and feed production systems. This may possibly be obtained with perennial crops having low-environmental impacts, and deliver feedstocks for biorefineries for the production of biofuels, biomaterials and feed for livestock.

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