FAR: Impacts Assessment of Climate Change - Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Summary and Conclusions

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4.1 Agriculture

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4.1.8 Future Tasks

This report has emphasised the inadequacy of our present knowledge. It is clear that more information on potential impacts would help us identify the full range of potentially useful responses and assist in determining which of these may be most valuable. Some priorities for future research may be summarised as follows:

• Improved knowledge is needed of effects of changes in climate on crop yields and livestock productivity in different regions and under varying types of management. To date, less than a dozen detailed regional studies have been completed, and these are insufficient as a basis for generalising about effects on food production at the regional or world scale.
• Improved understanding is needed of the effects of changes in climate on other physical processes, for example on rates of soil erosion and salinisation; on soil nutrient depletion; on pests, diseases and soil microbes, and their vectors; on hydrological conditions as they affect irrigation water availability.
• An improved ability is required to 'scale-up' our understanding of effects on crops and livestock to effects on farm production, on village production, and on national and global food supply. This is particularly important because policies must be designed to respond to impacts at the national and global levels. Further information is needed on the effects of changes in climate on social and economic conditions in rural areas (ej employment and income, equity considerations, farm infrastructure, support services etc).