Climate Change, Agriculture, Carbon, and Food Security

Abstract

The global carbon cycling involves a mix of natural steady-state rates and reservoirs, along with changing rates and reservoirs affected by human activities. Human activities release billions of tons of GHGs, especially CO2, annually into the troposphere through fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, agriculture, and urbanization, contributing to global warming. While agriculture accounts for approximately 24% of anthropogenic GHG emissions, climate change adversely affects agriculture and food security. Mitigating and adapting to climate change are crucial for sustainable agriculture to ensure global food security amidst a growing population. Agriculture must be economically viable, environmentally compatible, and socially acceptable, with a focus on proactive climate-smart practices, drought-tolerant crops, chemical inducing, precision fertilization, optimized irrigation, carbon sequestration, and soil health improvement. Although South Asian countries have formulated national and local policies to address climate change challenges, there is a need for enhanced coordination across different institutions to implement effective adaptation policies in the future.