Impact of Climate Change on Subsistence Agriculture

Smallholder and subsistence farmers from developing countries are more likely to suffer the impacts of global climate change, says a new study published by PNAS. The vulnerability in these countries came both from being located in the tropics and certain socioeconomic, demographic and policy trends that limit their capacity to adapt to change. John Morton, who authored the study, however, pointed out that these impacts will be difficult to model and predict.

Morton enumerated several stressors that tend to increase the vulnerability of smallholder agriculture to climate change. These include: population increase, low farm sizes, low capitalization, environmental degradation, regionalized and globalized markets and state fragility. On the other hand, resilience factors like family labor, existing patterns of diversification away from agriculture and indigenous knowledge, may help them deal with the changes.

The paper pointed out the need for a conceptual framework that will allow a thorough understanding of the impact of climate change to subsistence agriculture. There is a need for an interdisciplinary attempt to apply the growing scientific knowledge on the effects of climate change on crops and livestock and on the complex and diverse farming systems of developing countries.

Subscribers can read the article at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0701855104v1 The abstract is available at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0701855104v1