Global Warming Affecting Farmers Around the World

I found this article in the New York Times. The first major aspect that the article talks about is the green revolution in India. The green revolution was a major change in the Indian agriculture business. In this revolution, M.S Swaminathan, a plant geneticist, developed crops that have higher yields for the growing Indian population. Also, use of irrigation, fertilizers and pesticides were encouraged and used in many more farms. The Green revolution helped feed a lot of hungry people in India, but global warming is threatening to take away all the success that India's agriculture has had. The article says that even one degree change in the mean year temperature would affect India's crop production. Some estimates claim that there could be a 10 to 30 percent decline of crop yields. This would be devastating to the billions of people living in India.

India's location means that it will definitely be affected by global warming, but countries like America and China could be just as affected by this global change. China's lead meteorologist predicts that China's crops will be devastated by drought in the near future.

The article also says that lower latitude countries will be more affected than high latitude countries. Some scientists believe that they could just farm in the northern latitudes such as in Canada and Siberia. With global warming, these areas should become warm enough to grow crops such as corn. The only problem is that the soil in these areas are often composed of rock with little to no nutrients.

This article also talks about how farmers need to be the leaders in stopping warming emissions. Worldwide agriculture is about 14% of global emissions and if you count logging and conversion of forests to farmland, its 31%. Learning and using new techniques to help lower global emissions should be a major concern for farmers around the world.

Overall, this article was very interesting. A lot of people have their suspicions about global warming, but the facts are there and now people need to start taking action. Farmers especially need to reconsider the way they farm and start looking for more green ways to farm.