Climatic Variability and Agronomic Cropping Pattern

Abstract

When the climate changes, so does the weather. We can get bad weather without climate change, but we can’t get climate change without the weather changing too. Climate change and agriculture are interrelated processes, both of which take place on a global scale. Climate change affects agriculture in a number of ways, including through changes in average temperatures, rainfall, and climate extremes (e.g., heat waves), changes in pests and diseases, changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide and ground-level ozone concentrations, changes in the nutritional quality of some foods, and changes in sea level. Climate change is already affecting agriculture, with effects unevenly distributed across the world. Climate changes have affected agriculture for thousands of years and will continue to do so. My experience as a farmer and as an agronomist through wet and dry cycles in semiarid of KP Pakistan is of diversity. As a professional agronomist, to minimize cropping risks, crop diversity should be adopted to overcome on food security and lessen the impact of climate change. As an economist looking at countries with individual businesses, diversity minimizes risks. As a societal explorer, civilizations, animals, and plants have come and gone without diversification in a changing environment. I would suggest that climate change effects should be overcome by diversity. The climate change is not unique in nature. It is multifaceted gradual changes over period of time. So far as the agronomic crop and cropping pattern is concerned, it varies from situation to situation.