Climate Change and Agroforestry

Natural climate change is a gradual process that takes millions of years and has made our planet habitable for living organisms. It is not limited to a particular country or continent, as evidenced by droughts in Texas and flooding along the Missouri River in the United States, as well as along the Red River in Canada. Climate change presents various challenges and interacts with numerous non-climatic stressors, making it difficult to predict its consequences in a general sense, other than the threats it poses to agriculture. Agroforestry can increase the level of diversity within agricultural lands, supporting numerous ecological and production services that bring resilience to the impact of climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Climate change risk management is challenging in annual cropping systems due to the increasing uncertainty of inter-annual variability in rainfall and temperature. Mixing woody trees with crops, forage, and livestock operations provides greater resilience to inter-annual variability by diversifying crops and increasing resource use efficiency. Deep-rooted trees allow better access to nutrients and water during droughts and, when appropriately integrated into annual cropping systems, extract resources that would otherwise be lost from the system. Agroforestry increases soil porosity, reduces runoff, and increases soil cover, which improve water infiltration and reduce moisture stress in low rainfall years. During periods of excessive soil moisture, tree-based systems keep soils aerated by pumping out excess water and provide an economic return.

The book contains 36 chapters, primarily focusing on agroforestry practices in India and their role in climate change mitigation and adaptation.