Climate Change: A Threat to Food Security & Rural Livelihoods

Climate change is one of the main challenges that impact food security agriculture as well as rural livelihoods for the world population in different regions. Agriculture highly depends on the climate and weather (Pecl et al., 2017). In the world today, over 60% of the global population depends on the agricultural produce for livelihood (Hsiang et al., 2017). Succicinlty, the rural population mainly depend on agriculture as a major source of livelihood. Historically, almost 100% of the global population depended on agriculture, during the agrarian revolution and green revolution, many people and organizations ventured on the agriculture as it was the main source of income (Valipour, Sefidkouhi, & Raeini, 2017). However, with the increase in the industrial revolution, there has been interference with the environment, a situation that has led to climate change. Livelihood and food security wholly depend on sustainable agriculture. On the other hand, achieving food security needs the availability of adequate food (Altieri & Nicholls, 2017). Therefore, agriculture plays an essential role when it comes to the achievement of the three components of food security.

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Going by the scientific literature and the policy debates, the intensification of agriculture results from the green revolution; as a result, the nature and practice of agriculture have been on the rise in different parts of the world (Kellogg, 2019). The diversification of cropping patterns is on the rise. However, due to climate change, agricultural production has been impacted. The rural agriculture and livelihood have been greatly impacted due to lack of knowledge and uncertainties brought about by climate change (Rojas-Downing et al., 2017). Climate change exerts pressure on agricultural production, a situation that adversely affects the poor people, especially in rural areas. Climate change is currently making adverse impacts on the lives of people, specifically those from low-income families. Climate change is evident in several ways. The extreme weather, including droughts, hailstorms, and floods, have been experienced in different parts of the world (Karimi, Karami, & Keshavarz, 2018).

In an attempt to understand and mitigate the climate change, there has been several agreements and debates that attempt to provide solution and at the same time, link the historical perceptions of climate change to the current approaches. For instance, the Paris Agreement distinguishes the fact that ensuring the necessary reduction when it comes to the greenhouse gas emission requires huge investments (Du Pont et al., 2017). The above agreement also stipulates the importance of the private sector when it comes to the mitigation of climate change. With the increasing concerns in agriculture and the general livelihood of the people, climate mitigation is an essential step the will ensure increased production of food as well as improvement in the livelihood of the poor in the rural areas (Ourbak & Magnan, 2018). However, there are weaknesses or gaps in the Paris Agreement. In other words, the above agreement lacks direct and clear provisions on the ways of generating and supporting the required investments; essentially, the above agreement does not support or lacks an enforcement mechanism.

Even though human and natural factors impact climate, it is human footprints that are the essential contributors of climate change; the increase in the emission of greenhouse gases as well as the reduction or lack of effective processes to mitigate them is a major challenge (Chabbi et al., 2017). Succicinlty, climate change is perceived as a direct consequence of human activities. The industrial production processes increase the emission of harmful gases that leads to increased pollution, a situation that leads to climate change.

References

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https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3286

Du Pont, Y. R., Jeffery, M. L., Gutschow, J., Rogelj, J., Christoff, P., & Meinshausen, M. (2017). Equitable mitigation to achieve the Paris Agreement goals. Nature Climate Change, 7(1), 38. Retrieved from:

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