How Climate Change is Reshaping Agriculture

Agricultural activities rely heavily on the climatic conditions of a location, and the Earth’s climate is the reason why agricultural activities have different forms in different places. By changing our global climate, climate change is revolutionizing the distribution and prosperity of agricultural activities around the world.

Firstly, by changing the patterns of precipitation and the distribution of heat, climate change is making certain places viable for the cultivation of certain crops while making other unsuitable. For example, grapes that once could only grow in the vineyards of Champagne, France, are now estimated to be able to be cultivated in the UK. Grapes used in viticulture has strict regulations for the environmental conditions they grow in. The shift in the range of location where they can grow the best in would influence the prosperity of the viticulture industry around the world.

Secondly, climate change is fostering a lot of innovation and new development in agriculture. Known for being the cause to a lot of methane emissions, cattle ranching has long been criticized for its contribution of methane to the atmosphere via cow farts. Under the context of climate change and the enhancement of environmental awareness around the world, farmers have innovated cow feed that consists of red seaweed. Cows which each this new cow feed would not contain methane in their farts and thus contribute less to global warming.