Source:  NCSU, 8/19/20


Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Dominic Reisig, professor of entomology at NC State; Clyde Sorenson, Alumni Association Distinguished Undergraduate Professor of Entomology at NC State; and Matt Bertone, director of NC State’s Plant Disease and Insect Clinic. This post is part of a series highlighting ways that NC State is helping us understand, mitigate and prepare for the impacts of climate change.

Agriculture has always been a risky endeavor, with the vagaries of weather, pests, soil, and water making every crop and every season a roll of the dice. Agricultural systems in most parts of the world are the result of generations of trial and error (and, over the last 100 or so years, agricultural research) that, ultimately, reduce that risk as much as possible. In other words, agriculture depends on the local predictability of environmental conditions. Climate change reduces that predictability.

Climate change is already impacting agriculture. Eastern North Carolina, for example, is experiencing more extreme weather events, saltwater intrusion (where saltwater seeps in from below or overruns the land above, making it un-farmable), and land subsidence (where the land sinks) from the human-mediated effects of agriculture and climate change. And other agricultural areas won’t be spared.

For more of this story, click here.