The environmental crisis and climate change are among the greatest threats to agriculture today. This implies risks for food security and for the economy, as current conditions and future forecasts point to a necessary transformation of production methods and consumption patterns. Adaptation to climate change has a dual function: on the one hand, to reduce emissions and pollution from agriculture and livestock farming, since these activities are major contributors to the emission of greenhouse gases and other forms of pollution. On the other hand, adaptations will aim to increase the resilience of crops, so that they will be able to withstand the disruptions caused by climate change.
The program Cazador de Cerebros on RTVE 2, presented by Pere Estupinyà, has broadcasted a program on how climate change influences weather conditions and the tourism and agricultural sectors. Margarita Ruiz Ramos was interviewed in the Experimentation Fields of the ETSIAAB-UPM to find out how it affects crops.
Margarita Ruiz points out that, in addition to the progressive increase in temperatures, crops are exposed to the vulnerability caused by the unpredictability of weather patterns, with increasingly common but also more extreme phenomena, making crop planning more difficult, altering their development and generating large material and economic losses. Droughts, torrential rains, heat waves or hail and hailstone are affecting the natural crop calendar, and some farmers are already anticipating this by bringing forward the seasons for some annual crops.
For the researcher, farmers will have to adapt in different ways: using more resistant varieties, using water rationally, where it will produce the most benefit, and even with more flexible and tactical positions, as well as with knowledge and financial capacity to manage and react to specific events that may affect their crop.
You can see the full program at the following link: https://www.rtve.es/play/videos/el-cazador-de-cerebros/esta-loco-tiempo/16080603/.
The intervention of Margarita Ruiz Ramos appears from minute 23:05.
