Climate change and food security

KOCHI: Food security is going to be the politics of climate change. The country that has food and water will rule the world, a few decades from now. Keeping in tune with the problems, governments have begun to promote research in agriculture, to generate solutions for climate change adaptation.

“We need to develop strategies through crop simulation models, smart genetics, agronomic packages, ecosystem management and decision support systems,” says Alan Robson, Vice-Chancellor, University of Western Australia, and a renowned agricultural scientist.

Robson is in Kerala to launch the Master of Science course in Climate Change Adaptation at Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) in Thrissur, at a function on Monday.

“Half of Kerala’s population depends on agriculture and the state’s produce includes rice, coconut, tea, coffee, rubber and spices. So, there is a need to initiate research to enhance agricultural development and the livelihood of agricultural communities in Kerala,” he said.

"The two universities signed a memorandum-of-understanding last year to start the five-year integrated course, the first batch of which has already started,” he added.

KAU’s introduction of its MSc Climate Change Adaptation course is timely in the wake of one of the biggest humanitarian disasters in history - the August floods in Pakistan and the contrasting wild fires and drought in Russia. Parts of China and Europe were severely affected at the same time. “As the planet warms, we are seeing climate extremes in different parts of the world,” he said.

“In India, global warming will result in conditions, including monsoon uncertainties, a decline in rainfall, an increase in temperature and sea level, frequent floods and landslides, more summer droughts, groundwater depletion, decline in water resources and water quality, and a decreased land area and yield in thermo-sensitive crops such as rice and wheat. Our nation, too, faces the challenges of climate change and I look forward to collaborating with KAU in adaptation strategies through crop simulation models, genetics, agronomic packages and decision support systems,” Alan Robson said.

University of Western Australia has been ranked 34th by Shanghai Jiao Tong World University Rankings for agricultural sciences this year. Robson, who chairs the group of eight top universities in Australia, says that these select universities set the agenda for research in Australia among the 40 universities in the country.

“University of Western Australia is helping in the course preparation as we have been working on climate change adaptations in agriculture for some years now,” says University of Western Australia Winthrop Professor Kadambot Siddique, who is the director of UWA’s Institute of Agriculture. An alumnus of KAU, he says that the new course will be the first of its kind not only in India but also in Asia.

Source: expressbuzz.com