Экономические науки/ 12.Экономика сельского хозяйства

PhD in Economics, senior researcher,

L. UDOVA,

Institute for Economics and Forecasting,

National Academy of Science of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine

IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON AGRICULTURE

Climate change is the most important issue related to the global food security, which could be efficiently provided if the ways of managing agricultural systems and available natural resources are improved. Future of food security depends on natural resources, the environment and climate change.

Food security could be achieved if appropriate conditions for rural communities are created in order to adapt to the changes that are taking place. Transformation processes in the agricultural sector must take place taking into account the necessity to feed the growing world population (according to the World Bank, food production worldwide will have to increase by 70-100% till 2050, and population will grow to nine billion), to provide economic growth and poverty reduction without killing the natural resource potential.

World climate change is happening faster than scientists predicted. At the end of 2015, at the 21^st Conference of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Paris Climate Agreement was adopted which was signed on behalf of Ukraine in April 2016 in New York. This agreement replaces the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Assembly of the Paris Summit aimed to study strategies to stabilize greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference into the climate system. Scientific research results show that the temperature increase on Earth to 2ºC, compared to pre-industrial times, will have dangerous and unpredictable effect on climate (faster melting of glaciers will lead to flooding the coastal towns and small islands, the extinction of many species of animals and other destructive weather events). Since 1850, the average temperature has increased by 1ºC, yet the agreed safe limit for global warming is 2ºC. Moreover, the level of CO₂ has grown up by 30% after the Industrial Revolution, since 1979 the ice melt in the Arctic Ocean has increased by 4% in 10 years, the new century will have 9 of 10 hottest years.

Therefore, the aim of the Paris Summit was to develop ways to constrain carbon emissions, enabling countries to continue economic development and provide support to the least developed areas and those most affected by rising temperatures.

Within the framework of the Paris Agreement the global goal of preventing temperature increase of more than 2ºC in comparison to pre-industrial level has been set, aiming to reduce this temperature to 1,5^oC [1].

The main reason for the ratification of this Agreement in our country is the fact that the issue of greenhouse gas emission reductions for Ukraine is in plane with decreasing in the share of fossil fuels, ensuring energy independence of the country, differentiation of energy supply and sustainable development of the country.

According to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), increase temperature and frequency of extreme events will have both direct and negative impact on crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture productivity.

Food Agriculture Organization (FAO) has recognized that agriculture can provide world population with food conditioned upon sustainable rural development under the "Climate-smart agriculture" (CSA), which was presented at the Hague Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change in 2010. This program involves the development of technical, political and investment conditions to achieve sustainable agricultural development for food security under the climate change. Implementation involves three objectives: sustainable increase of agricultural productivity and incomes; adapt and build resilience to climate change; reduce and/or remove greenhouse gas emissions where possible [2].

The CSA approach is designed to identify and operationalize sustainable agricultural development explicitly integrating climate change as a major parameter.

In the next 10 years climate change in Ukraine will have both positive and negative consequences for agriculture that will also vary by agro-climatic zones. Extension of the growing season will be favorable for the economy of the northern part of the country, Polissya areas in particular. For the South, on the contrary, it could lead to increase of droughts. According to the climate scenarios, in 20-30 years crop heat provision in the northern half of the country could reach or exceed the current level of the Southern one. The temperature will allow to have no limits on grain corn harvest of more middle and late types in the northern regions of the country, and to grow late sunflower types.

Increasing temperatures and uneven distribution of rainfall, which have a local character in the warm season and do not provide effective moisture accumulation in the soil, caused an increase in the number and intensity of droughts. In combination with other anthropogenic factors it may lead to the expansion of risky farming and even desertification of some areas of the southern regions of Ukraine.

According to the World Bank, temperature growth in Ukraine by 2100 will increase the yield potential of crops: grain crops, maize, sunflower, soybean, rice, wheat, melons, cotton, vegetables, walnut, peach, apricot, apple, cherry, plum and grapes. The expected increase in the photosynthesis process to 30-100% can accelerate the growth and ripening of wheat, barley and sunflower which will increase the potential to collect its harvest by 20-30% accordingly. In particular, winter wheat yield could rise by 20-40%. However, increasing the carbon dioxide content in the positive impact on crop yield will cause deterioration of grain quality [3, p. 23-24].

REFERENCES

1. Мет МакГрат. Кліматичний саміт: що це таке і кому це потрібно // [Електронний ресурс]. – Режим доступу: http://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/ science/2015/11/151130_climate_summit_ko.

2. FAO success stories on climate-smart agriculture // [Електронний ресурс]. – Режим доступу: http://www.fao.org / climatechange.

3. Адаптація до змін клімату: навч. посібник. – Карпатський Інститут Розвитку, 2015. – 88 с.

The study was supported by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in the framework of the departmental theme "Resource opportunities of development of the Ukrainian economy’s agrarian sector" (state registration number 0114U001638).