Rising food and water insecurity: Major environmental threat

Human living is dependent on food and water. Water is life source of food because it is required in ample amount for cultivation of crops. Food and water security is under severe threat due to rising temperature in atmosphere and unsustainable farming practices by agriculturalists. Basically, agriculture affect the environment through its direct impacts on land cover and ecosystems. At global level, agricultural practices are responsible for climate change through emission of greenhouse gases and drop of carbon storage in vegetation and soil.

At local level, farming decreases biodiversity and immensely impact on natural habitats through land conversion, eutrophication, pesticide inputs, irrigation and drainage. Unsustainable agricultural practices may result in direct environmental degradation such as soil erosion and loss of pollinators.

If this environmental issue is ignored by climate scientists, it may pose serious danger to the lives of humans, economic wealth, and peace and security at global scale.

To curb the severe environmental issue of global food and nutritional insecurity, government and other concerned organizations must take effective steps and espouse good tactics to lessen the impact of bad agricultural practice.

Primarily, farmers need to cultivate more nourishing food items with less water. They must adopt pioneering technologies for biodegradable and more sustainable food production. They need to work out to augment crop yields; execute well-organized irrigation approaches such as recycle of drainage water and use of water resources of marginal quality. Agriculturalists must adopt advanced techniques for using fertilizer and water. It is necessary to protect crop from insects and reduce loses from post-harvest through smarter farming procedures.  They need to put more efforts to develop sustainable livestock and maritime production.

To tackle food and water insecurity, climate professionals must focus on talent of people and institutional framework. They must develop new institutional arrangement for water regulation in regional areas. It is highly advisable to make improvement in value chain. Agriculturalists must address on the value chain of production, post-harvest management, processing, selling, consumption to distribution and trade, efficient water and food recycling approaches. It will definitely aid to secure environmental water supplies.

Closing thought:

Currently, food and water insecurity is intense environmental issue because of poor practices adopted by farmers and drastic climate change. It is well recognized that food and water is basic necessity of humans to survive. Therefore agriculturist must espouse modern techniques to produce quality food and improve water management system to enhance human life.