Crop production and land use inputs to global warming

Authors

  • Pavlo Lykhovyd

Abstract

Global warming is one of the main challenges of modern world. Climate change impacts greatly almost every sphere of human life and industrial activity with the strongest effect on nature-related sectors of the economy such as agriculture. Agriculture is a sphere of human activity, which is both the most effected and one of the effecting agents on global climate change. It is a common belief that agricultural production provides most emission of greenhouse gases resulting in rapid global climate change. However, this statement lacks evidence. The study presented in the paper is aimed to investigate the inputs of crop production, as a major branch of agriculture, to global greenhouse gases emission. Retrospective historical data provided by the Food and Agriculture Organization, the History Database of the Global Environment, and Climate Watch on the emissions and factors affecting them, including pesticides, fertilizers application, tractors use, agricultural land structure and forest areas, were implemented in the research. As a result, it was determined that crop production cannot be assumed as the leading force of greenhouse gases emission and global warming. Crop production inputs in global emission in 2010 were only 17.40%. There is a tendency to further decrease in greenhouse emission by crop production. However, when CO2 and CH4 emission tend to decrease, there is a threatening tendency to the increase in the volumes of N2O emissions from agricultural activities, mainly related to nitrogen fertilizers, pesticides, and tractors use. Also, there is a negative trend to further deforestation on the global scale, leading to the deterioration of global ecological balance and less absorption of greenhouse gases, thus resulting in the increased pace of global warming. Therefore, it is concluded that the main task of modern crop production is to keep up the pace for carbon emissions limitation and simultaneously take steps to eliminate the emission of N2O through the revision of mineral fertilizers (especially nitrogen) and pesticides application strategy and reduction of exhaust from tractors used in agriculture. Besides, afforestation is essential for the insurance of global ecological sustainability.

 

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Published

2021-08-18

How to Cite

Pavlo Lykhovyd. (2021). Crop production and land use inputs to global warming. International Journal of Modern Agriculture, 10(2), 4706 - 4714. Retrieved from http://www.modern-journals.com/index.php/ijma/article/view/1430

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