Climate change and agriculture are vitally linked, as each has profound implications for the other. This year’s Blog Action Day, with its focus on climate change, is the perfect opportunity to remind everyone in the development and environmental fields about this relationship, to help ensure that poor people are not adversely affected by climate change. A majority of the working population in developing countries relies on agriculture for income, but agriculture is the sector most vulnerable to climate change due to its sensitivity to shifts in temperature and precipitation. Small farmers, many of whom are already struggling to make ends meet, require assistance adapting to climate change in order to protect their livelihoods as well as ensure sustainable crop production to feed a world of 9 billion by 2050. Furthermore, because agriculture is a large contributor of greenhouse gases, farmers need to develop mitigation strategies, hand-in-hand with adaptation, which can help limit the release of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane. These actions will of course require dedicated funding from the developed world, as well as developing country governments, and this financing must be part of the international climate change negotiations that will conclude in December in Copenhagen.

Read more about IFPRI’s work on agriculture and climate change:
Climate Change: Impact on Agriculture and Costs of Adaptation
Agriculture and Climate Change: An Agenda for Negotiation in Copenhagen (set of 13 briefs)
Climate Change home