Citation:
Jerry Knox, Joe Morris and Tim Hess. Outlook on Agriculture. Identifying future risks to UK agricultural crop production: Putting climate
change in context. Vol 39, No 4, 2010, pp249–256
Abstract:
Internationally, agriculture is widely regarded as one of the sectors at most
risk from a changing climate. This is due to the impact of increased
temperatures, reduced rainfall and increased frequency of extreme events, not
only in the tropics but also in temperate environments. In the UK, growers also
face a range of 'non-climate' risks, which, it is often argued, present a
potentially greater and more immediate threat to sustainable food production
than climate change. This paper highlights the climate and non-climate impacts
on crop production, the adaptation options and the institutional and regulatory
barriers to their uptake by farmers. It concludes that there are likely to be
both positive impacts (for example, yield gains) and negative impacts (for
example, increased water stress). Either way, there will be a need for new
investments in adaptive management and technology, including new collaborations
between the public and private sectors, to enable UK agriculture to respond to
the potential effects of climate change