Climate
Agricultural innovation to help combat climate change
Recent years have been the hottest on record, greenhouse gas emissions are at a record high – and there will be 2 billion more mouths to feed as the world population climbs to 9 billion by mid-century. Agricultural innovations are helping farmers adapt to the changing climate, while also boosting productivity.
Climate solutions on the farm
New agricultural innovations and plant science technologies provide many of the solutions to tackle climate change. They are also helping farmers produce sufficient healthy and nutritious food to feed the world’s growing population.
Higher yields and more climate-resilient crops lower the pressure on forests, grasslands and wetlands. These new crops will need to endure weather extremes, including heat, drought and excess precipitation.
New threats will also emerge as ecosystems adapt to the new climate norms and as the geographic range of insects, and fungal and bacterial pathogens changes.
2024 is now virtually certain to be the hottest year on record. It will also be the first full year to surpass 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels across the majority of observational records.
Source: Carbon Brief
“The pace and scale of climate change make it difficult for traditional breeding methods to generate the varieties [of plants] needed to sustain food security and ameliorate the problem of increased CO2. But new tools are available to help tackle this problem.”
Daniel Voytas, Professor of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development, University of Minnesota
Innovations in the fields
Plant biotechnologies and new fertilizers and pesticides mean less land is needed to produce the amount of food required today. Herbicide-tolerant and insect-resistant crops have also reduced the amount of chemicals needed for weed and insect control.
New seed technologies allow farmers to move from using tillage to control weeds, to zero-tillage farming, decreasing erosion, reducing chemical residues in watersheds, and keeping more moisture in the soil.
Meanwhile, digital agronomy – technologies like wireless remote monitoring, digital sensors, drones, and AI-driven analysis – helps farmers to use pesticides, fertilizers, and water more efficiently while still maintaining good crop yields.
Source: Valgen
“All of these hugely beneficial sustainable agriculture breakthroughs can only happen if they are supported by policy environments that encourage innovation and commercialization. They also need predictable and science-based international trading standards that facilitate the movement of climate-smart farming innovations around the world.”
Emily Rees, President & CEO, CropLife International
Growing more food using less
Advances in plant science allow farmers to produce more nutritious food to feed the world’s growing population while using far fewer natural resources – and doing this under less predictable growing conditions.
Plant scientists can use genome editing to create climate-resilient crop traits that tolerate heat, drought and flooding.
Genome editing can also introduce crops that are resistant to pests and diseases, increase the amount of carbon stored in the plants, change leaf architecture to improve photosynthesis and boost yields, improve the nutritional quality of different food crops, and even accelerate the domestication of new crop species.
It takes an average of 16.5 years to get a new GM crop to market – and approximately 11 years for a new pesticide.
Source: CropLife International