Preface

Agriculture is essential to the livelihood of all people and nations, especially in the developing world. Climate change is likely to have an extensive impact on agriculture around the world through changes in temperature, precipitation, concentrations of carbon dioxide, and available water flows. This book entitled "Climate Change and Agriculture" provides the most recent research on the interaction between climate change and the agriculture sector. With contributions from internationally recognized scientists, this volume contains 13 chapters covering the key topics related to climate change hazards, risk assessment, mitigation strategies, and climate-smart agriculture innovations. It offers a solid foundation for the discussion of climate resilience in agricultural systems and the requirements to keep improving agricultural production in the face of mounting climate challenge.

I wish to express my gratitude to the contributing scientists in this edition for their overwhelming response and for readily accepting my invitation. All the contributors not only shared their knowledge, but admirably integrated the scattered information from diverse fields in composing the chapters and efficiently incorporated the editorial suggestions finally to produce this venture. I greatly appreciate their commitment. I am also thankful to the IntechOpen team (especially Ms. Dajana Pemac) for their generous cooperation at every stage of the book production. I hope this volume will be useful to all agriculturists, environmentalists, climate change specialists, policy makers, research scholars, and others concerned with climate change and agriculture.

**II**

**Chapter 9 153** Methane Emission Assessment from Indian Livestock and Its Role in Climate

**Chapter 10 169**

**Chapter 11 183**

**Chapter 12 197**

**Chapter 13 223** Capacity Development for Scaling Up Climate-Smart Agriculture Innovations

Climate Change and Uncharted Social Challenge in Existing Urban Setup in

Environmental Impact Evaluation of Rubber Cultivation and Industry in

Salinity Stress in Arid and Semi-Arid Climates: Effects and Management in

*by Sajid Hussain, Muhammad Shaukat, Muhammad Ashraf, Chunquan Zhu,* 

*by Sumiani Yusoff, Zameri Mohamed and Aireen Zuriani Ahmad*

*by Shilpi Kumari, Moonmoon Hiloidhari, Satya Narayan Naik* 

Change Using Climate Metrics

*and Raj Pal Dahiya*

Bangladesh *by Reazul Ahsan*

Malaysia

Field Crops

*Qianyu Jin and Junhua Zhang*

*by Elliot Mahlengule Zwane*

**Dr. Saddam Hussain** Assistant Professor, Department of Agronomy, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan

**1**

**Chapter 1**

**Abstract**

**1. Introduction**

same few thousand years.

Agriculture

*Joan Feynman and Alexander Ruzmaikin*

Climate Stability and the Origin of

Although modern man had developed long before the migration from Africa

∼ 10,000 years ago. But in the next 5000 years, agricultures developed in several unrelated regions of the world. It was not a chance occurrence that new agricultures independently appeared in the same 5000 years. The question is what inhibited agriculture worldwide for 44,000 years and what changed ∼ 10,000 years ago? We suggest that a major factor influencing the development of agricultural societies was *climate stability*. From the experience of several independent cultures, we estimate that the development of agriculture needed about 2000 years of climate

**Keywords:** origin of agriculture, climate stability, paleoclimate data, younger Dryas

One of the most important events in human history was the establishment of agriculturally based societies, that is, societies with fully developed agriculture. Modern human beings (*Homo sapiens sapiens*, Hss) had developed in East Africa by about 195,000 ybp (years before present) [1]. [Note that the dates throughout the chapter are the calibrated by 14C years before 1950.] However, no agriculture appeared during the first 100,000 years after the development of modern man [2]. Even after migrations out of Africa began about 55,000 years ago, no agricultural societies developed during the next 44,000 years. Although before 20,000 ybp, the cave walls in the south of France were being painted so beautifully that we can understand the art [3], there was no agriculture. But then around 10,000 ybp agricultural societies were independently established in many regions during the

The relationship between climate and the development of agriculture has been widely discussed for many years by both the anthropology and climate scientific communities. Many competing views have been developed primarily based on studies of the archeology of the Near East (for a review see [4]). For example, it had been suggested [5] that agriculture appeared as a result of technological advances that gradually increased man's ability to exploit the environment after man had occupied vast areas of the Earth. Certain conditions were found necessary for the development of agriculture [4] such as the technology for collection, processing, and storage of agricultural products and the presence of potential domesticates in the local environment. Examples included development of improved hunting technology by one group and perhaps experimentation with agriculture by another. The

began ∼ 55,000 years ago, no agricultural societies developed until about

free from significant climate variations on time scales of a few centuries.
