ipl-logo

Final Essay

1611 Words7 Pages

Two widely fought over and controversial issues that are often the cause of many political battles is the shortage of food resources and climate change. Thus it is important to look at how these two issues are linked together and the consequence one can have on another. In specific, take a look at the impact of climate change on agriculture. One theory is that climate change will have a presumably overall positive impact on agriculture. Climate change brings with it vast changes in temperature, these changes could greatly affect the agricultural system. Everything in the environment is designed to function at its optimal level under optimal conditions. This is in particular to crop yield all around the world, explaining why some products …show more content…

In Canada, the temperature has increased by 1.3°C which has resulted in greater precipitation levels, specifically 12% increase all over Canada (Government of Canada, 2014). This increase in temperature and precipitation is significant because they are important abiotic factors that determine the outcome of crop quality and yield. Crop yield refers to the amount of harvest that can be produced per hectare of given land (Bullis, 2014). For example, wheat, which is the number one grown crop in Canada requires several conditions in order for the crop to be grown properly, such as between 420 and 480mm of water (Government of Alberta, 2011). If this condition is not met it could prove for great drawbacks in wheat production. Other possible areas of concern due to climate change with respect to crop yield include high heat conditions causing damage to crops and soil erosion. One of the ways in which this can happen is from having warmer winters, which will decrease the amount of protective snow cover and make the soil more susceptible to erosion (Government of Canada, 2014). This decrease in soil quality has led Canada to see a decrease in land for agricultural purposes to 7.3% (Statistics Canada, 2014). Looking at the issue on a more global scale, the U.N. reports that the world’s largest crops such as corn, wheat and rice could decrease harvest …show more content…

Climate change can greatly change the supply of produce that is available to consumers due to droughts and extreme weather conditions a fore mentioned. This reduction will evidently lead suppliers to hike the prices of goods, with higher prices, consumption levels decrease causing the rise of many health factors in humans (Adams et al., 1998). Statistics Canada outlined the decrease in household spending on food between 1969 and 2009 with increasing food prices annually by 4.3%, amounting to a fall from 18.7% to 10.2% respectively (Davison, 2011). Likewise, as seen in Table 2, fragile countries as in those that lack the tools for a stable economy and industrial infrastructure have the greatest percentage of expenditure on food compared to developing countries (Brinkman & Hendrix, 2011). This point helps to shape the importance of climate change on agriculture in Canada as well as globally as the changes in growing patterns will affect spending patterns of global citizens. Furthermore, with fewer resources to provide for the growing population, civil conflicts over limited supplies are bound to occur. To prove this fact even further, it is shown that many countries that have a lack of resources providing for poor nutrition and health are seen to be greatly

Show More
Related

  • Pros And Cons Of The Keystone XL Pipeline

    1994 Words  | 8 Pages

    An increase in the climate could offset any economic benefits that supporters discuss. Over the next several decades’ parts of the U.S. could become semi-permanent drought, with rain that occurs alongside extreme events with heavy floods according to Hansen. These conditions would make farming extremely difficult resulting in food prices skyrocketing. If Hansen’s predictions are true then this could result in a loss of a great amount of jobs and could create more economic losses than what will be gained

    Read More

  • Changes In The Transition From Hunting And Gathering To Agriculture

    837 Words  | 4 Pages

    An example of dramatic weather shifts as noted by The world a history, “The onset of global warming, as we saw, brought climatic fluctuations and instability. Sometimes warming intensified, causing droughts; sometimes it went into reverse, causing little ice ages.” The changing climate, particularly the shift towards a more arid environment in some regions, reduced the availability of wild game and plant foods, making it more difficult for hunter-gatherer societies to sustain themselves. At the same time, the increasing abundance of certain plant species, such as wild grains, provided a new resource that could be cultivated, leading to the development of agriculture. This transition allowed humans to better control their food supply, as they could grow crops even in adverse environmental conditions.

    Read More

  • Main Causes Of The Great Depression In America

    905 Words  | 4 Pages

    Drought Conditions make food to decrease. The price of foodstuff has been increasing. People cannot pay their taxes or debts. They have to sell their land. People 's burden is increasing.

    Read More

  • Climate Change In Michael Pollan's 'Why Bother?'

    549 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the article ‘The Climate Crisis at the End of our Fork’ Anna Lappe, co-founder of the Small Planet Institute, has drawn on research to determine that a “full eighteen percent of the worlds global warming effect is associated with ‘land use changes’” (Lappe 753) such as livestock emissions and the destruction of rainforests. According to Lappe, these changes in land are used for livestock and pastures for cattle. This poor management of land significantly impacts climate change which produces food for consumers. Therefore, Lappe suggests that people look more closely at what they eat and where it comes from.

    Read More

  • Persuasive Techniques Used By Mckay Jenkins And Anna Lappe

    1576 Words  | 7 Pages

    Additionally, this article humanizes farmers such as Jenny Schmidt who often get villainized in the industry. On the other hand, The Climate Crisis at the End of Our Fork, by Anna Lappe focuses on the various techniques the author finds wrong with modern day farming. Unlike Jenkins, she advocates for sustainability in a way that rejects artificial farming practices, such as GMOs. Lappe also pushes for an increase in local farms who use organic practices. She believes this would make crops better fit to sustain natural disasters such as droughts, and be overall better for the

    Read More

  • Review Of The First Chapter Of Omnivore's Dilemma

    1556 Words  | 7 Pages

    Corn has become abundant. The use synthetic nitrogen fertilizer is a contribution to the global warming due to the farming and this also pollutes the water for the

    Read More

  • Global Warming In Cuba Essay

    677 Words  | 3 Pages

    Adapting to global warming made it difficult for farmers. But, there has also been a problem with the temperatures. The average annual temperature has increased by 0.5 degrees, which more frequent heavy rain storms and drought has increased also. Small farmers are trying to find a better to develop improved seeds and harvest them in difficult environmental conditions. The Program for Local Agrarian Innovation has benefitted about 50,00 farmers with international development aid.

    Read More

  • Nikolas Kozloff's No Rain In The Amazon

    693 Words  | 3 Pages

    This is related to the agriculture industry because agriculture, and the economy based off of agriculture is one large part of what connects the Global North and South. Due to the changing climate, farmers are affected and so are growing seasons, which affect relations between

    Read More

  • Global Food Security Problems

    971 Words  | 4 Pages

    Starting with the first reason, the population explosion is one of the most common reasons affecting the food security problem, which is defined as the lack of balance between (the increase in the number of births) and the resources available in a particular country. Global population growth leads to the inability of some countries to meet the needs of the people and as a result upset the balance of living for families, which leads to increase the proportion of famine in some areas and sufficient living needs on other places and this will increase the spread of diseases. According to a 2004 article from the BBC, China, the world 's most populous country, is suffering from an obesity epidemic. On the other hand India is the second-most populous country in the world, 30 million people have been added to the ranks of the hungry since the mid-1990s and 46% of children are underweight. The second reason of the food security problem is climate change.

    Read More

  • Climate Change In Sub-Saharan Africa

    1682 Words  | 7 Pages

    The issue of climate change has become a common challenge for both developed and developing countries. Climate change has a visible challenge on the lives and livelihood strategy of developing nations. It has been is one of humanity’s greatest challenges and it is believed that within the next fifty (50) years, global warming will increase to the detriment of the world’s population. It is a serious threat has the potential to cripple sustainable development by adversely impacting the environment, human health, ecosystem and diversity, food production and security, and economic activity (Abafura, 2011) Climate change refers to the average temperatures and precipitation rates over an extended period of time.

    Read More

  • Final Essay

    1193 Words  | 5 Pages

    Studying abroad was something that had not crossed my mind prior to coming to college and in my first year at URI. I was someone who had a hard time adjusting to the complete culture shock of going to school far away from home and being away from family for the first time. As I had adjusted to my life at URI and learned to love everything it has to offer, I came across the ‘major’ dilemma. I needed to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life, but felt that I couldn’t pin point exactly what it was that I wanted to do. I always had a passion for interior design, but never thought of it as a career path because I didn’t think that I would be able to get a job after graduation.

    Read More

  • Climate Change In Africa Essay

    839 Words  | 4 Pages

    The impact of climate change is being felt throughout the world; however, the situation is more pronounced in developing countries because many households, social groups and regions have a limited capacity to adapt to climate variability and change (UNFCCC, 2007; IPCC 2007). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007:6) defined climate change as any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity. The (UNFCCC 2007) espoused that agricultural production on the African continent relies primarily on rainfall. As such, any interruption in rainfall pattern and intensity will adversely affect the poor, predominantly the smallholder farmers (ibid).

    Read More

  • How Does Climate Change Affect Food Security?

    792 Words  | 4 Pages

    , (2010) analyzed impacts of climate change on sorghum in India using the InfoCrop-SORGHUM simulation model. A changing climate was projected to reduce monsoon sorghum grain yield by 2 per cent to 14per cent by 2020, and yields will worse by 2050 and 2080. Impacts on winter sorghum are projected to reduce yields up to 7per cent by 2020, up to 11per cent by 2050 and up to 32 per cent by 2080. A dynamic vegetation model projected changes in more than a third of the forest area by 2100, mostly from deciduous to evergreen forest in response to increasing rainfall, although fragmentation and other human pressures are expected to slow these changes (Chaturvedi et al., 2011).

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On Global Food Crisis

    1321 Words  | 6 Pages

    Remember the revolutions that swept the Middle East in 2011, they all began with people in the street upset over the price of food. What’s more many of the world's top agricultural experts believe that this is just the tip of the iceberg unless we figure out new strategies to deal with global food security. We may be entering a new and dangerous phase of human history where food water and energy shortages threaten not only worse poverty but also civic unrest and international conflict. There are a number of reasons for this alarm, the first reason is that in most years we produce only just enough food to cover uses. in fact in six of the last 11 years we actually consumed slightly more food then we produced and the buffer we take from one year to the next has been steadily falling so our system already seems pretty fragile ,but it's when we look into the future that things grow very dire indeed.

    Read More

  • Climate Influence On Human Health

    862 Words  | 4 Pages

    For example, changes in temperature and precipitation, as well as droughts and floods, will affect agricultural yields and production. (USDA, 2015) In some regions of the world, these impacts may compromise food security and threaten human health through malnutrition, the spread of infectious diseases, and food poisoning. The worst of these effects are projected to occur in developing countries, among vulnerable populations.

    Read More

More about Final Essay

Open Document