Does Climate Change Affect Agriculture?

Written By Teacher: Liz Ransom

As a High School Spanish teacher and student newspaper advisor, Liz has taught for over 20 years and has served as World Languages Department Chair and K-6 summer camp activities leader. She has worked in Ohio, Maine, New Jersey, Maryland, and Chile.

Revealing climate connections between agriculture, our daily lives, and the health of our planet can provide relevant, rich material across grades and disciplines. Elementary students can explore how preserving the natural world also preserves our ability to produce food with this lesson on bees. Middle and high school teachers can use this video, Less Harm on the Farm, to empower students with both the knowledge of how we arrived at this moment and the real climate solutions that are being put into action today.

Written By: MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative

The MIT Climate Change Engagement Program, a part of MIT Climate HQ, provides the public with nonpartisan, easy-to-understand, and scientifically-grounded information on climate change and its solutions.

Food systems are the complex web of people and activities that make up the production, processing, transport, and consumption of food. The foundation of these systems is agriculture, the practice of growing crops, trees, and other plants and raising animals for food, fiber, and fuel. Food systems are affected by many challenges including climate change, rapid population growth, degradation of land and water resources, urbanization, and changing consumption patterns driven by a growing global middle class.

Agriculture is likely to face severe impacts from climate change, reducing the amount of food we can grow at a time when more is needed than ever before. The planet’s growing population and food consumption will require food production to increase by 70% by 2050. At the same time, the production, storage, and transport of food causes greenhouse gas emissions which contribute to climate change.