A review of literature on climate change and its impacts on agriculture productivity

• Date: 01 November 2019
• Published date: 01 November 2019
• Author: Pritee Sharma,Bushra Praveen
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1960

ACADEMIC PAPER

A review of literature on climate change and its impacts on

agriculture productivity

Bushra Praveen |Pritee Sharma

School of Humanities and Social Sciences,

Indian Institute of Technology Indore, Indore,

India

Correspondence

Bushra Praveen, School of Humanities and

Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology

Indore, Simrol, Indore 453552, India.

Email: bushraparvn@gmail.com

This paper provides a comprehensive review of various reports, articles documents

and papers literature related to the assessment of climate change impacts on crop

productivity, and will focus on how climate change and affects agriculture produc-

tivity. Agricultural practice is affected by climate changes because of its direct

dependence on climatic changes. There are two methods of relationships between

agriculture and climate change and has huge significance especially for developing

and underdeveloped or low‐income countries, who are largely dependent on agri-

culture for subsistence and their lack of infrastructure for adaptation as compared

with developed countries. Geographically high‐latitude areas with already existence

of low temperature, by virtue of increasing temperature due to climate changes,

could allow for the longer growing season. Agricultural fields are affected by the

emission of GHG such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane. Gasses have

an effect on climate through the discharge of greenhouse gasses. Emissions mostly

come from the tillage practices, fossil fuels, fertilized agricultural soils, and farm ani-

mal's manure in a huge amount and affected the agriculture sector. On the con-

trary, agriculture could be a solution for climate change by reducing emission and

implementation of mitigation and adaptation actions widely. It will happen with

the assistance of best management practices such as agroforestry practice, organic

farming, rainwater harvesting, irrigation planning, and manure management.

1|INTRODUCTION

Climate change (CC) is the most dangerous natural hazard that

adversely affects agricultural production (Enete & Amusa, 2010). The

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) reveals the

cause of CC is which means any changes in climate over time (delete),

environmental variation or anthropogenic activity. The reason for CC

is due to the increase of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) in the atmosphere,

which results in accretion of GHGs effect. Agricultural sectors and CC

are interlinked with each other on a global level, and their relationship

is of particular importance as ever‐increasing inequality of the earth's

population and world food production. Some analysis reports say that

temperature changes, precipitation and severe weather events are

expected to reduce agricultural production in many regions of the

low‐income or developing world, mainly Africa and parts of Asia

(Gornall et al., 2010).

Impacts and results of climate variability for agriculture tend to

more dangerous for countries with higher initial temperature and

regions with marginal or already degraded lands and low level

of development with poor adaption capacity (Keane, Page, Kergna, &

Kennan, 2009). On the contrary, many studies revealed that present

agricultural and its allied activities are a major source of GHG that

make worse climate disruption (Reddy, 2015). The method of

agriculture is varied between low‐income and high‐income countries,

which are due to variation in agricultural contribution to CC. In low‐

income or underdeveloped countries, GHG emission from agriculture

sector is much, and it is due to a large number of cattle and inadequate

manure management, improper use of agrochemicals, and

Received: 19 March 2019 Accepted: 31 March 2019

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1960

J Public Affairs. 2019;19:e1960.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1960

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of15