Higher temperatures, more variable precipitation, and changes in the frequency and severity of extreme climate events will have significant consequences for food production and food security. However, the frequency of heat stress, drought, and flooding are also expected to increase, even though...

Livestock—poultry, small ruminants (such as goats and sheep), cattle, and pigs—provide many benefits for human well-being. Livestock production systems, especially in developing countries, are changing rapidly in response to population growth, urbanization, and growing demand for meat and...

Many opportunities exist for mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through better management of trees and soils. There is potential for both direct mitigation through better management of carbon in agricultural landscapes and indirect mitigation through reduced pressure on carbon stored in...

Rice is grown on more than 140 million hectares worldwide and is the most heavily consumed staple food on earth. Ninety percent of the world's rice is produced and consumed in Asia, and 90 percent of rice land is—at least temporarily—flooded. The unique semiaquatic nature of the rice plant...

Of the five principal global carbon pools, the ocean pool is the largest at 38.4 trillion metric tons (mt) in the surface layer, followed by the fossil fuels (4.13 trillion mt), soils (2.5 trillion mt to a depth of one meter), biotic (620 billion mt), and atmospheric pools (800 billion mt). If...

Climate change will certainly affect agriculture, but agriculture can also be harnessed to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A key element in supporting agriculture's role is information. The costs of adapting agriculture to climate change can be large and the methods not always well...

Food security has deteriorated since 1995 and reductions in child malnutrition are proceeding too slowly to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for halving hunger by 2015. Three major challenges threaten to drastically complicate efforts to overcome food insecurity and...