Climate change adaptation strategies for agro-ecosystem – a review

Abstract

Agriculture the major economic and social activity in the globe. It is understood that agriculture is highly sensitive to climatic variability and likely to be affected most to predicted climate change. The fourth assessment report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has reconfirmed that the phenomenon of existence of climate change in recent decades is due to anthropogenic activities. It is also revealed the availability of wide array of adaptation options for agro-ecosystem to cope up with the impact of climate change. However, it is important to design more extensive adaptation strategies to reduce vulnerability of agriculture and rural poor to impacts of climate change. Climate change impacts and responses are presently observed as autonomous adaptation in the physical and ecological systems as well as in human adjustments to resource availability and risks at different spatial and trophic levels. But these strategies are not enough to reduce the current anthropogenic driven climate change, so there is a need to adopt the planned adaptation. This paper reviews the findings based on the series of studies carried across the globe on the potential adaptation strategies to alleviate the impact of climate change by improving the resilience of the agro-ecosystems. Adaptation strategies have to be in place to reduce vulnerability to climate change through developing consensus between industrialized countries and developing countries at global scale, whereas new public policies in place at national regional and local level is prudent to support adaptation research, insurances, incentives to farmers to adapt new technologies.