Consequences of climate change for agriculture: a present or future problem? (Numero Monografico: Politicas de gestion de crisis y riesgos agrarios.)

摘要

This article discusses the present and future consequences of climate change on agriculture. At present, the main challenge to the agricultural and food sector is controlling greenhouse gas emissions, i.e., mitigate climate change. In the future, mitigation will remain important, but the main problem will be adaptation to different conditions. The international community is making an effort to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions (current mitigation policy), but climate will continue to adjust to the current level of atmospheric gases, with unavoidable risks to natural or managed systems. Agriculture needs to be prepared for never-experienced conditions, and to respond to and recover from their impacts. The response needs to be triggered by adaptation policy in the present and in the future. The challenge is to define an optimum combination of mitigation and adaptation policies for agriculture and food production.