Priority areas for the development of field fodder production in view of the climate crisis

Abstract

This article covers the topical issue of the general impact of climate change on Ukrainian agriculture and on the field fodder production industry specifically, as well as the problems of adapting agriculture to modern environmental conditions. The authors set out to substantiate promising ways of developing modern field fodder production considering climate change. For this, the study employed the abstract-logical method, system analysis, methods of systematisation and classification, and a range of economic and statistical research methods (comparison, series of dynamics, method of structural groupings). Both negative and positive manifestations of the climate crisis in crop production were highlighted, and possible measures to counteract risks and ways to use potential opportunities to develop field fodder production given the impact of climate change were systematised. Particular attention was paid to the global practices of agriculture in the face of climate change, namely, the components of a climate-smart crop production system. The study also described the main promising measures of adaptation of field fodder production to climate change: irrigation of agricultural land, arrangement of snow retention systems in the fields, rainwater harvesting, selection and introduction of new varieties of fodder crops, effective crop rotation, increase in sowing of drought-resistant fodder crops, optimisation of agricultural technologies to reduce losses of fodder crops at the stages of harvesting and storage, application of organic farming, the latest soil fertilisation technologies and the use of nanotechnology in soil cultivation. The findings of this study can be used by managers of specific agricultural enterprises, as well as by advisory services and government agencies in the field of agricultural policy implementation.