The Adaptation of Agriculture to Climatic Change

Climate change is already impacting and will continue to impact agriculture and food supplies worldwide. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that food security will be increasingly affected by projected future climate change by 2050 if agricultural practices are not optimized and scaled up to advance adaptation throughout the food system. Agronomic research looks at this challenge from an integrated, holistic perspective. It thrives in identifying opportunities that exist for altering management of cropping systems to deal with projected climatic and atmospheric changes. These opportunities include but are not limited to: (1) use of varieties/species, which have abiotic stress (e.g., heat and drought) tolerance and more appropriate thermal time and vernalization requirements, (2) increasing biodiversity in cropping systems (e.g., cover cropping) and enhancing soil health, (3) altering fertilizer management strategies to maintain the quality and quantity of the crop economic product consistent with the prevailing climate, (4) altering irrigation and water management strategies, (5) innovations in rain water harvesting techniques and soil water conservation and use, (6) managing excess water to prevent water logging, erosion, and nutrient leaching in high rainfall areas, (7) altering the timing and location of crop production, (8) diversification of farming systems through integration of ‘non-crop’ components such as livestock, (9) enhancing pest, disease, and weed management strategies, and (10) improving the effectiveness of climate forecasting to reduce production risks.

This Special Issue will focus on “The Adaptation of Agriculture to Climatic Change”. We are open to original research, reviews, and opinion articles covering all aspects of individual crop and cropping system management to adapt to climate change. We welcome studies focusing on agronomic crops and cropping systems in order to prepare the current food production system for upcoming challenges.

Dr. Sruthi Narayanan
Dr. Nithya Rajan
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.