Climate-smart cropping systems for temperate and tropical agriculture: mitigation, adaptation and trade-offs

Abstract

-Climate-smart cropping systems should be designed with three objectives: reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, adapting to changing and fluctuating climate and environment, and securing food production sustainably. Agriculture can improve the net GHG emissions balance via three levers: less N 2 O, CH 4 and CO 2 emissions, more carbon storage, and green energy production (agrifuels, biogas). Reducing the application of mineral N fertilizer is the main option for reducing N 2 O emissions either directly or by increasing the proportion of legumes in the rotation. The most promising options for mitigating CH 4 emissions in paddy fields are based on mid-season drainage or intermittent irrigation. The second option is storing more carbon in soil and biomass by promoting no-tillage (less fuel, crop residues), sowing cover crops, introducing or maintaining grasslands and promoting agroforestry. Breeding for varieties better adapted to thermal shocks and drought is mainly suggested as long-term adaptation to climate change. Short-term strategies have been identified from current practices to take advantage of more favorable growing conditions or to offset negative impacts: shifting sowing dates, changing species, cultivars and crop rotations, modifying soil management and fertilization, introducing or expanding irrigation. Some crops could also move to more suitable locations. Model-based tools and site-specific technologies should be developed to optimize, support and secure farmer's decisions in a context of uncertainty and hazards. Most of the adaptation and mitigation options are going in the same way but tradeoffs will have to be addressed (e.g. increasing the part of legumes will be possible only with significant breeding efforts). This will be a challenge for designing cropping systems in a multifunctional perspective.

Farmers’ Willingness to Pay for Climate Information Services: Evidence from Cowpea and Sesame Producers in Northern Burkina Faso

“…Farmers willing to pay for all climate information and services tended to be younger people or non-educated. This contradicts the results of other authors [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] who reported that age has a positive effect on the WTP for climate information demand in Ghana and Burkina Faso. Zongo et al [7] showed that education of farmers positively influences the demand for CIS.…”

“…It is often based on generations of experience and includes both biophysical and mystical indicators [6]. With the increase in rainfall variability and climate extreme events (such as droughts, floods and strong winds) as consequences of climate change in the Sahel [8], the endogenous forecasts, are becoming less reliable [7]. This means that climate change is bringing and increasing risk and uncertainty on agricultural production.…”

Mitigation of emerging implications of climate change on food production systems

“…Some American and European countries have already diversified livelihoods, harvested rainwater or used alternative livelihoods for fishing by developing change-resistant hybrids, as a mean to face climate change, especially among farmers in diverse tropical and subtropical areas all over the world (Curcic et al, 2018). This should generate new opportunities but also lead to limitations arising from various factors of not only environmental and technological character, but also of political and market factors (Schroth and Ruf, 2014;Debaeke et al, 2017). Diversification strategies can be defined on different bases including:…”

Yield and Quality of Forages in a Triple Cropping System in Southern Kyushu, Japan

“…Climate change causes a major stress on livestock production [9] and it affects the quantity and quality of forage crops. The mitigation of stress in forage cropping systems varies for specific regions [10,11], such as Europe and China [12], and optimum management practices include cow and calf and dairy cows under the variable climatic conditions during summer and autumn in the region, and triple forage cropping system over a couple of years should be determined to evaluate the feasibility of the cropping system in southern Kyushu, Japan.…”