Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
poses a challenge to governments and societies (Ninan and
Bedamatta, 2012).
In 2005, nearly half of the economically active population
in developing countries (2.5 billion) relied on agriculture for
its livelihood (Nelson et al., 2009). Today three-fourths of the
world's poor population live in rural areas (Anonymous, 2008b).
Agriculture and allied sectors are highly sensitive and vulner-
able to climate change (Adams et al., 1998) as these changes
will have an impact on agriculture by affecting crops, soil, live-
stock, fisheries and pests, directly and indirectly (Anonymous,
2007b; Ninan and Bedamatta, 2012). Global warming due to
the greenhouse effect is expected to affect the hydrological
cycle namely, precipitation, evapotranspiration and soil mois-
ture, which will pose new challenges for agriculture. The Food
Policy Report 2009 suggested that agriculture and human well-
being will be negatively affected by climate change (Nelson
et al., 2009) and summarises the following impact:
•
In developing countries, climate change will cause yield
declines for the most important crops. South Asia will be
particularly hard hit.
•
Climate change will have varying effects on irrigated
yields across regions, but irrigated yields for all crops in
South Asia will experience large declines.
•
Climate change will result in additional price increases
for the most important agricultural crops such as rice,
wheat, maize and soya beans. Higher feed prices will
result in higher meat prices. As a result, climate change
will reduce the growth in meat consumption slightly and
cause a more substantial fall in cereals consumption.
•
Calorie availability in 2050 will not only be lower than in
the no-climate-change scenario. It will actually decline
relative to 2000 levels throughout the developing world.
•
By 2050, the decline in calorie availability will increase
child malnutrition by 20%, relative to a world with no cli-
mate change. Climate change will eliminate much of the
improvement in child malnourishment levels that would
occur with no climate change.
•
Thus, aggressive agricultural productivity investments
of US$ 7.1-7.3 billion are needed to raise calorie con-
sumption enough to offset the negative impacts of climate
change on the health and well-being of children.
The brunt of environmental changes on India is expected to
be very high due to greater dependence on agriculture, limited
