El cambio climático: posibles impactos en la agricultura en el contexto de América Latina y Venezuela

It is a fact that agriculture is a productive activity that is highly dependent on environmental conditions and very sensitive to climate variability and climate change. All the scenarios described strongly suggest that the effects on agriculture will be severe in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and therefore in Venezuela, where small-scale and subsistence farmers will be the most sensitive and vulnerable to changes in climate variability. This article is the result of a process of reviewing information related to the impacts of climate change in the context of LAC, with an emphasis on Venezuela. Climate models project that climate change would negatively affect yields, cultivated areas, and production of many crops in the tropics, in addition to potentially limiting the advances in food security that would be achieved in a scenario without climate change. In recent years, climate change has highlighted the high levels of vulnerability to which the countries of the region are exposed. The short-term challenge for LAC – and particularly for Venezuela, is to identify the degrees of vulnerability and design appropriate adaptation measures. Climate change will cause an alteration in the country's agro-climatic conditions, and in the geography of land suitability, by the time it will introduce future changes in the production systems of numerous crops or the implementation of new agricultural products and production systems. Therefore, it will be necessary to promote basic research lines in the adaptation of crops and agronomic practices to future climatic conditions. However, it also opens up opportunities for new crops with potential added value through productive transformation. Hence, actions to adapt to climate change should be linked to national development and poverty reduction strategies.