A lot can be done to adapt farming to near-term climate change

Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskThat same year, according to the World Bank, the planet produced 1.95bn tonnes of wheat, rice, corn and other cereals. That harvest provided half of the world’s dietary caloriesBy 2020 annual emissions due to fossil fuels were over 50% higher than they had been in 1992.

Devising new additives, widgets and methods to help farmers is so widespread that it has become an industry in itself, with its own jaunty name: agtech. There are products that can help plants of all types survive with less water. Others offer substances that stimulate plants to fertilise themselves, by harnessing the nitrogen-fixing properties of certain bacteria. Another common idea is to manipulate plants’ biochemical messengers to induce them to grow faster or produce more seeds or fruit.

With losses due to climate change likely to rise, the population still increasing and the food that the population wants changing in its nature agricultural adaptation has a great deal more work to do in the decades to come.Most agtech, and indeed much of the other equipment that developed world farmers rely on, is far beyond the reach of poor farmers in the developing world. Many of them have no savings to carry them through bad harvests, much less to invest in their farms.

Research conducted on behalf of the World Bank a decade ago concluded that the benefits of upgrading the early-warning systems of poor countries to the standards of the rich world would be anywhere from four to 36 times greater than the cost. It is not an expensive undertaking: providing a national weather service with modern equipment and training costs some $20m-30m, says Jarkko Sairanen of Vaisala, a Finnish manufacturer of meteorological equipment.

I have the print copy which claims sources and acknowledgements of the climate change special report are in the online version. I can’t find these anywhere. Can you share link please

Yep. Mega-farming isn't done indoors.

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Source: TheEconomist - 🏆 6. / 92 Read more »