By Jessica Armstrong
Climate
change is not only affected by changes in the way we farm crops and the new
technologies that we develop, but climate change can also be devastating to
agriculture. With our climate changing at a much more dramatic pace the USDA
has issued a statement to farmers, “Climate change is real, climate change is
the result of human action, and climate change poses unprecedented challenges
to U.S. agriculture (2).”
Challenges
with extreme weather, natural disasters, and carbon emissions have threatened
crop quality and farmers ability to make profit. Agriculture according to the
EPA contributes at least $200 billion to the U.S. economy every year. As
temperature raise crops can grow more quickly, but this does also lead to a
smaller harvest. Warmer temperatures also increase frequency of weeds and pests
that can destroy or cost farmers enormous amounts of money. The increase in
weeds alone costs $11 billion a year to control, which will only get worse as
our temperatures increase (1).
Livestock
in America is particularly important; American’s consume over 36 million tons
of meat per year (3). Weather such as an increase in temperatures can stress
animals causing an increased vulnerability to disease, infertility, and a
decrease in production of milk or eggs (3).
Heat waves cause thousands of deaths in livestock each year; heat can
also causes an increase in pests that diminish animal’s health that again
attributes of the death of livestock.
Farmers are
no longer able to ignore nor deny the existence of climate change. Climate
change is a painfully obvious and cumbersome reality of their industry, if
farmers hope to have productive crops and livestock they will have to adapt to
their changing surroundings. Adaptations such as growing crops that are
suitable to their specific climate and providing livestock with nutrient dense
food will help to combat negative consequences from a changing climate.
Sources:
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