Climate changes have negative impacts on almost everything and its impact on agriculture is one of the major problems. Agriculture is a big part of a nation’s economy and food supply, its contributions to that nation’s economy and food supplies are immense. Therefore, the affect of climate change on agriculture can greatly harm both a nation’s economy and food production.
The process of agriculture includes preparing the soil for growing crops which is heavily dependent on the climate. Both the soil and the different crops are very sensitive; these require specific temperature, moisture, water consumption and slight change to any of these elements essential to the plants grown can cause them to die or not grow properly. An article about climate change states, “Climate change is likely to contribute substantially to food insecurity in the future, by increasing food prices, and reducing food production.” This form of change puts a lot of pressure on the farmers. Since it gets extremely hard for the farmers to properly grow crops, it gets harder to feed the vast population and due to this, the price of food increases. There will be less food for the population which will increase competition among people and due to the increased price, most likely the middle to lower-class families will end up with less food compared to the higher-class families. Less food production can also decrease the salary of the farmers and the workers who are related to the food production. Thus, climate change impacts on agriculture not only harm the famers but also the poorer citizens who can’t afford the necessary food due to the increased price.
United States has several large platforms that contribute to the economy and one of them is agriculture. Another article states exactly how much agriculture can contribute to the United States economy: “Agriculture is an important sector of the U.S. economy. The crops, livestock, and seafood produced in the United States contribute more than $300 billion to the economy each year.” And this is just the production itself. The article further states that when food and agriculture related industries are added, the total sum ends up more than $750 billion annually to the economy. Harming agriculture will harm the United States economy but since USA has multiple economic contributors, the country might take a little less damage from harmed agriculture compared to most other nations. Not all countries are like the USA which have many sources of income. There are many small countries which are heavily agriculture dependent, and some of these countries supply food products to other countries. Most of the major economic profit for these countries come from agriculture so if the agriculture collapses, the country will have no other platform for major income. So, in general, agricultural-centered countries will be the most devastated if their production is harmed by climate change.
Agriculture requires a large amount of space to grow crops and if climate change ruins these agricultural lands, there will be a shortage in land. If there is not enough farming space the production may need to move to other locations more fit for farming. Deforestation will also increase so lands can be used for farming. Also lands that are ruined by climate change will force citizens and famers relocate and move to regions that will benefit them. This will create an unbalanced populations in certain regions.
Overall, agriculture is very important and plays a significant role for a nation’s economy because it is key in feeding vast populations. If this process is destroyed by climate change, countries will lose their valuable economic support, many jobs will be lost, shortage of space will increase, and poor citizens will be left with insufficient food supplies.
Image: Original painting by Sadman Hafiz
Work Cited
- Climate Impacts on Agriculture and Food Supply.
Climate Impacts on Agriculture and Food Supply | Climate Change Impacts | US EPA
- Impact of climate change on agriculture.
