Introduction
This webpage was created for the Meteorology, Weather & Climate
class at Chapman University.
Climate Change
When
it comes to climate change and agriculture the two are related.
Agriculture depends on the climate, if the weather is too cold or too
hot then the plant will perish. Certain environmental conditions are
needed for crops to grow and the climate determines those conditions.
Therefore if the climate changes than agriculture will be affected.
Although, there are ways to mitigate the climate. If is is too hot for the crops we can create devices or methods that will make it more of an ideal climate for the crops to grow. However with these external inputs, are we causing more of a detriment to the environment? We have created a system that makes crop growing a system.
When it comes to conventional farming, the farms are reliant on chemicals such as pesticides and synthetic fertilizers for the production of the crops (Hokazono 2012, Niggli 2009). It was in 1910 when the U.S. had its first tractor with a combustion engine and the inventions of nitrogen fertilizers from a German chemist named Fritz Haber at around the same time (Rasmussen 1973, Collings 1955). The significance of this event was that before the 19th century most of the world’s food was produced organically, mainly from organic manure, animal and human power (White 1970). It was because of these inventions that had caused this agricultural revolution which became the main components of modern agriculture by having machines plow and cultivate the lands and using synthetic chemicals to improve crop production.
Has the shift to conventional farming caused such a change in our lifestyle that shifting to a smaller scale, Urban farming much harder? The videos in the following tab labeled urban farming shows that it may be a positive step to go back to more of holistic approach to farming.
