Agroecological bases for the adaptation of agriculture to climate change

Abstract

Although many indigenous and peasant populations are particularly exposed to the impacts of climate change and are vulnerable, some communities are actively responding to the changing climate and have demonstrated innovation and resilience, using a diversity of strategies to cope with droughts, floods, hurricanes, etc. In this article, we argue that traditional farming systems offer a wide range of management options and designs that increase functional biodiversity in crop fields, thereby enhancing the resilience of agroecological systems. Many of the traditional agroecological strategies that reduce vulnerability to climate variability include crop diversification, maintenance of local genetic diversity, animal integration, addition of organic matter to the soil, water harvesting, etc. Several agroecologists have deciphered the agroecological principles underlying these strategies, which can be adapted by taking different technological forms (according to farm size) to design modern agricultural systems that become increasingly resilient to climatic extremes.