Climate change, Covid-19 and world agriculture

Climate change affects the whole world. The new threat for the world is Covid-19. The world has already started to enjoy the devastating effects of climate change. Now this world is going to an irreversible way to destroy itself. The world leaders remain silent rather to save this beautiful world. 

Agriculture is directly related with climate change. Crops, Livestock and Fisheries all are affected. Scientists are dreamt a hunger free world. Consequently productivity is increasing rapidly through research. But unfortunately we could not be able to make the world hunger free. Climate change are reducing the capacity of natural resources like soil, water, biodiversity to sustain the increasing food demand of the world. Surface or ground water (known as fresh water containing less than 1% salt) scarcity is a problem of many countries which is mandatory in agriculture. Saline water is also a threat for agriculture. For high productivity we are using chemical fertilizer which damage soil health. Soil organic matter is decreasing which in future adversely affect the production. Biodiversity is now in great danger as every year thousands of species extinct from this world. Habitat destruction and natural disaster directly affects the biodiversity and ecosystem. The world has seen the wildfire of Amazon forest several time in the year 2019. In several countries (Australia, USA) we have seen wildfires and million of wild animals, and habitats are destroyed (https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2912/satellite-data-record-shows-climate-changes-impact-on-fires/). 

Milk production, egg production, fertility and reproduction of animals are affected by hot and humid weather, extreme temperature as well as welcome many parasites and diseases of livestock and poultry. Climate change also affects reproduction, migration and life cycle of fishes as well as responsible for outbreak of many marine diseases.

Agriculture is not only feed the world but also keep running different industries directly or indirectly supplying different raw materials. In 2019 the world observes different climate change effects like extreme temperature, flood, extreme weather, wildfires, cyclones, hurricanes and so many disasters. Flood affects Bangladesh, India, China, Thailand, Senegal, Cambodia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mali, Pakistan, Myanmar, Nepal and so many countries in this year. Crops and livestock are destroyed. These are alarming. Now these disasters are more frequently happening and the forms are more devastating. In 2020, We have seen super cyclone 'Amphan' few days back which hits on Bangladesh and India.

Covid-19 threat along with climate change arise a questions of our smooth survivability in this world. The frequent genotype changes of the viruses make it difficult to develop a vaccine. The whole world is stopped for a time being. We still don’t know the end. Food security is in question in this world. Agriculture will be the most important sector after the covid-19 crisis. Countries in the world are now thinking about their own food reserve to combat against different crisis like covid-19 (http://www.fao.org/2019-ncov/q-and-a/en/). Supply chain, marketing of agricultural product, and  farmers of developing countries are greatly affected during this pandemic. 

Countries around the world plan for a significant role of agriculture in mitigating and adapting to climate change. In this situation we have to redesign agricultural systems which sustainably increase agricultural productivity, adapt and build resilience to climate change, and reduce and/or remove GHG emissions in the agricultural sector. From that point of view Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) promotes climate smart agriculture (CSA)( http://www.fao.org/3/i3325e/i3325e.pdf) around the world which is an integrated approaches (all the stakeholders of agriculture like farmers community, agriculture related business stakeholder) to three pillars of productivity, adaptation and mitigation. To attain sustainable development goals (SDGs) developing countries should adopt climate smart agriculture. This project is implemented by FAO in different countries around the world. Climate smart agriculture has proven to be an invaluable method to build productive, resilient and climate-smart agricultural systems to bolster sustainable development and ensure food security in a changing climate as well as provide important pathways toward reaching the SDGs.  

At the end of this pandemic, we have to think about our lifestyle, we have to change ourselves. The world has to be changed with new concept of development, new concept of industrialization.  The world leaders should give emphasize to save the environment along with business. Research should be welcomed more to combat such kind of new challenges. Otherwise ignoring the nature (climate change effect) can bring more and more challenges to this world.

Nuronnabi Sagor