Climate Change and Agriculture
Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation
Climate change is likely to have significant impacts on the agricultural sector to which farmers will have to adapt. While agriculture is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, it is also a source of carbon storage in soils. This report examines the economic and policy issues related to the impacts of climate change on agriculture and adaptation responses and to the mitigation of greenhouse gases from agriculture. It outlines research undertaken and underway in other national and international research agencies. It also highlights some of the knowledge gaps on the impacts of climate change on food production and the uncertainties of those impacts in a global context that warrant further research efforts. In particular, the report analyses marginal abatement cost curves, which show the relative costs of achieving reductions in greenhouse gas emission through the implementation of different actions in the agricultural sector. The aim of the report is to help guide policy makers in the design of policies to address climate change issues in agriculture.
Integrating mitigation and adaptation
At present, research and policy relating to mitigation and adaptation are generally separate agendas, driven by different policy requirements and often handled by different agencies. Arguably, legally binding emissions reductions agreements have given more urgency to domestic mitigation agendas, which have, in part, eclipsed resource allocation for adaptation. The latter is often perceived as a longer-term agenda that can be partly assigned as a private rather than public responsibility. While this may be the case, there is nevertheless likely to be a public-good interest at stake when considering the outcome of private adaptation decision making in agriculture. At a minimum therefore the public role should be one of imparting relevant impact information as and when it becomes available and in seeking out the synergies in co-ordinated adaptation and mitigation planning.