Why does farming cause global warming

A better integration of innovative techniques into production methods, such as capturing methane from manure, more efficient use of fertilisers, and greater efficiency in meat and dairy production i. In addition to such efficiency gains, changes on the consumption side can help to further lower greenhouse-gas emissions linked to food.

In general, meat and dairy products have the highest global footprint of carbon, raw materials, and water per kilogramme of any food. In terms of greenhouse-gas emissions, livestock and fodder production each generate more than 3 billion tonnes of CO 2 equivalent. Post-farm transport and processing account for only a tiny fraction of the emissions linked to food.

By reducing food waste and our consumption of emission-intensive food products, we can contribute to cutting the greenhouse-gas emissions of agriculture. Crops need suitable soil, water, sunlight, and heat to grow. Warmer air temperatures have already affected the length of the growing season over large parts of Europe. Flowering and harvest dates for cereal crops are now happening several days earlier in the season. These changes are expected to continue in many regions. In general, in northern Europe agricultural productivity might increase due to a longer growing season and an extension of the frost-free period.

Warmer temperatures and longer growing seasons might also allow new crops to be cultivated. In southern Europe, however, extreme heat events and reductions in precipitation and water availability are expected to hamper crop productivity. Crop yields are also expected to vary increasingly from year to year due to extreme weather events and other factors such as pests and diseases. In parts of the Mediterranean area, due to extreme heat and water stress in summer months, some summer crops might be cultivated in winter instead.

Other areas, such as western France and south-eastern Europe, are expected to face yield reductions due to hot and dry summers without the possibility of shifting crop production into winter. Changes in temperatures and growing seasons might also affect the proliferation and the spreading of some species, such as insects, invasive weeds, or diseases, all of which might in turn affect crop yields.

A part of the potential yield losses can be offset by farming practices, such as rotating crops to match water availability, adjusting sowing dates to temperature and rainfall patterns, and using crop varieties better suited to new conditions e.

Land-based food sources are not the only food sources affected by climate change. The distribution of some fish stocks has already changed in the Northeast Atlantic, affecting the communities relying on these stocks throughout the supply chain. Along with increased maritime shipping, warmer water temperatures can also help facilitate the establishment of invasive marine species, causing local fish stocks to collapse.

There are also other funds under the CAP aimed at helping to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from agricultural activities. Agriculture is already one of the economic sectors with the largest environmental impact.

This substantial increase in demand will unsurprisingly create additional pressures. How can we meet this increasing global demand while at the same time reducing the impacts of European food production and consumption on the environment? Reducing the amount of food produced is not a viable solution.

Any reduction in key staples is likely to jeopardise food security in the EU and in the world, and increase global food prices.

This would make it harder for many groups around the world to access affordable and nutritious food. Producing more food out of the land that is already used for agriculture often requires heavier use of nitrogen-based fertilisers, which in turn release nitrous oxide emissions and contribute to climate change. Intensive agriculture and fertiliser use also release nitrates to the soil and to water bodies.

Although not directly linked to climate change, high concentrations of nutrients especially phosphates and nitrates in water bodies cause eutrophication. Eutrophication promotes algae growth and depletes oxygen in the water, which in turn has severe impacts on aquatic life and water quality. Whether in Europe or the rest of the world, meeting the growing demand for food by using more land would have serious impacts on the environment and the climate.

The areas most suitable to agriculture in Europe are already cultivated to a large extent. Land, especially fertile agricultural land, is a limited resource in Europe and across the world. Converting forest areas into agricultural land is also not a solution as this process is a source of greenhouse-gas emissions. It is clear that the world will need to produce more food and that key resources are limited. Agriculture has high impacts on the environment and the climate.

Moreover, climate change affects — and will continue to affect — how much food can be produced and where. Furthermore, this decline is likely to be temporary, yet we will need continued year-on-year CO 2 emission reductions of a similar magnitude to remain under 1.

Achieving the stringent agricultural mitigations proposed in ambitious scenarios mitigation pathways is no guarantee of meeting, or even coming close to, these temperature targets.

Should we miss these goals, we must reset our expectations and consider what is now politically and practically workable across different sectors to salvage the maximum mitigation effort, making the concerns identified above even more important.

If we are committed to a GWP accounting based approach above all else—a highly prescriptive yet physically abstract approach to setting emission reduction targets—we may lose flexibility in changing tack. We contend that the role of different emissions, and by extension different sectors, in mitigating climate change should be driven by and understood in terms of their temperature outcomes. Success should not be measured via an abstract and highly ambiguous reporting unit, whose primary virtue is customary use.

Simplified means of communicating emissions or emissions targets often obscure their climate impacts and omit the wider considerations that might be important for informed decision making. Similarly, historic and anticipated warming from different actors is important to address many concerns over equitable climate policy, as has been highlighted in discussions of equity and responsibility of different nations to mitigate climate change Matthews et al.

We argue that the exploring the sectoral and national attribution of overall warming to date and across alternative scenarios is a more intuitive and politically salient measure.

Finally, we must also briefly note the importance of wider land-use considerations linked with agricultural emission reductions. While a full treatment of this topic is beyond the scope of this paper, land-use for climatic benefits such as carbon sequestration or biomass for energy is often highlighted as being critical for ambitious mitigation pathways IPCC, in press.

Interventions to reduce agricultural emissions may therefore also be linked to land-use based mitigation efforts or vice-versa. Greater attention must be paid to the drivers and implications of alternative land-uses, as it is through different land managements that agricultural emission reduction strategies can support or conflict with other Sustainable Development Goals Arneth et al.

This further highlights some of the difficulties but also the importance of clear and robust discussion over what agricultural transitions are feasible and desirable. There are many inter-related concerns around agriculture, and particularly livestock Lynch et al. The non-CO 2 gases methane and nitrous oxide comprise a uniquely large share of agricultural emissions.

We therefore need to appreciate how emissions of these gases contribute to temperature change in order to understand the role of agriculture in global warming, and what agricultural emission reductions can achieve. These limitations are well-recognized: Fuglestvedt et al. More attention should be paid to the uses and limitations of different metrics for different purposes.

We call for more environmentally robust approaches in the future, including the use of multiple and alternative emission metric approaches, and modeling of the relevant impacts.

Revisiting the reporting of emissions, and appreciating that agricultural emissions are not direct analogs of fossil CO 2 , might also encourage a more critical take on some of the approaches and assumptions that agricultural mitigation requirements are built upon. Climate science tells us what different mitigation options can achieve—it does not directly inform on what mitigations must be made, except for the principle, which emerges directly from geophysics, that CO 2 emissions must eventually reach net-zero to prevent further warming.

There may be political discussions on how quickly net-zero CO 2 emissions can be reached, or how the limited cumulative emissions budget can be equitably shared out, but there is a clear ultimate requirement. Clarifying the impacts of different emitters can facilitate these negotiations and lead to workable mitigation policies.

Other elements that need to be considered in balancing emission reductions from different sectors require broader political, ethical, and social considerations, and we encourage researchers in these areas to be open and transparent about these factors. All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Contact Us. Related Information. Climate change presents real threats to U. These threats have significant implications not just for farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners, but for all Americans. Land managers across the country are already feeling the pressures of a changing climate and its effects on weather. As these risks continue and amplify, producers will be faced with the challenges of adapting. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack gave a speech in June, outlining the growing weather-related risks to farming, foresting and ranching.