The future of food production amid global change

When it comes to impacting global change, agriculture cuts both ways. Subject to the vicissitudes of global climate change, population, and economic growth, the cultivation of crops and livestock alters atmospheric concentrations of planet-warming greenhouse gases and ]contributes to pollution of freshwater and coastal areas. Assessing the risks to and from the agriculture sector — and identifying opportunities for the sector to thrive amid global change — is both urgent and essential.To explore challenges and opportunities for the sector, the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change convened a one-day workshop, “Agriculture and Global Change: Driving Forces, Contributions to Global Change, and Climate Risks.”Joint Program Research Scientist Kenneth Strzepek showed that how much water a society allocates for agriculture is a reflection of its climate, level of economic development, and evolving value system. Observing that 70 percent of today’s freshwater withdrawals are for irrigation, and that by 2050 about 17 percent of all water now used in agriculture will be at risk from reallocation to nonagricultural economic growth, population and urban growth, and environmental protection, Strzepek highlighted several trends that pose a growing threat to such withdrawals, including the adoption of clean energy generation through hydropower at the expense of water for irrigation.