Constantly changing weather conditions have a profound effect on farming. Their unpredictability makes farming difficult, resulting in loss of harvest.
Extreme weather events like floods and droughts are becoming more frequent and severe, resulting in significant economic losses for farmers and food shortages for consumers. This piece will explore extreme weather impacts on agriculture and what farmers can do to mitigate them.
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Why is Weather so Important for Agriculture?
Agricultural losses due to natural disasters are constantly increasing, causing economic damage and undermining the efforts of farmers to provide food to humanity. Agriculture accounts for most of the financial losses due to natural disasters, which are becoming more frequent, severe and harder to deal with every year.
Agrifood systems have never before faced so many threats: large-scale fires, extreme weather events, extreme desert locust invasions, and new biological threats such as the pandemic.
All of these natural disasters have a devastating impact on agricultural livelihoods and cause negative economic consequences for households, communities, countries and regions and last for generations. Luckily, modern technology, including one that allows for collecting and accessing satellite weather data for agriculture, paves new ways for food producers to ensure the safety of their crops.
How Weather Can Harm Agricultural Production
Extreme weather conditions are natural disasters caused by a combination of climatic factors. These conditions include heat waves, cold waves, floods, hurricanes, etc. To understand how weather affects farming, let’s go through some of the most devastating of its conditions.
Droughts
Drought is one of the effects of weather on agriculture. This natural disaster can lead to crop failures and livestock deaths due to lack of rainfall and hence water shortage. Drought harms agriculture in several ways: reduces soil moisture, increases the risk of pests and diseases, reduces the availability of water for livestock and drinking water for people.
To mitigate the impact of drought, farmers can adopt several strategies, including crop diversification and improved water management.
Floods
Floods can be caused by heavy rains, melting snow, or a combination of both. They can cause significant damage to crops and livestock, including soil erosion, waterlogging, and loss of crops. The impact of floods on agriculture varies depending on the type of crops. In addition to crop loss, floods can lead to livestock deaths and cause infrastructure damage.
To mitigate the effects of floods, farmers can adopt improved water management, plant flood-resistant crops, and use early warning systems.
Soil Degradation
Climate affects soil formation directly by determining the energy level and hydrothermal regime of soils, and indirectly through other factors of soil formation (vegetation, soil-forming rock, relief, etc.).
The direct role of climate is manifested in the fact that under its influence thermal and water regimes of soils are formed, which influence nature and intensity of all physical, chemical and biological processes taking place in soils. Energy of soil formation is connected with climatic conditions.
Climate plays the most important role in the regular placement of soils on the Earth. The main source of energy for soil processes is solar radiation, and the main source of moisture is atmospheric precipitation.
Role of Technology in Monitoring Extreme Weather Events
Technology plays a vital role in studying the impact of weather on agriculture. Remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) can be used to monitor changes in climate, soil moisture and vegetation cover. This information can be used to identify areas vulnerable to drought and flooding and to develop strategies to mitigate the impact of extreme weather.
In addition, precision farming technologies such as sensors, drones, and GPS can be used to monitor crop growth and development. This information can be used to optimize water and nutrient management, reduce agrochemical use, and improve yields. In addition, climate models can be used to predict future climate scenarios and their potential impacts on agriculture. This information can be used to develop adaptive strategies to mitigate the impacts of climate change on agriculture.
Weather Data in Farming Software
The market today offers different digital tools developed specifically for agricultural purposes. Apart from crop state tracking features, most of these tools enable access to weather data.
For example, EOSDA Crop Monitoring is a software that uses the power of satellite imagery analytics with AI to aid farmers grow crops in an effective and sustainable way.
In terms of weather data, EOSDA Crop Monitoring has teamed up with Meteomatics to offer the most accurate meteorology analytics.
The accuracy is achieved thanks to precision of up to 90 meters. More so, historical weather data is also available down to 1979, which allows growers to see not only the current and future weather but to analyze the past climate patterns that might repeat themselves on a particular territory. This enables the assessment of particular climate conditions to prepare for possible negative weather impact on agriculture.
