Agriculture and Climate Change: Problem, Victim, and Essential Solution

Agriculture at the Heart of the Climate Story

Agriculture sits at the center of the climate challenge. It feeds humanity, shapes landscapes, and sustains rural livelihoods — yet it is also a significant driver of climate change. At the same time, agriculture is among the sectors most exposed to climate impacts. This dual role makes agriculture both part of the problem and indispensable to the solution.

Understanding agriculture’s role in climate change requires moving beyond simple blame. The issue is not farming itself, but how food systems have been designed, intensified, and scaled over the past century. Choices about land use, inputs, livestock management, and supply chains have profound implications for the climate — and for the future resilience of food production.

How Agriculture Contributes to Climate Change

Agriculture contributes to climate change through multiple pathways. Unlike energy or transport, its emissions are not dominated by carbon dioxide alone. Methane and nitrous oxide — both far more potent greenhouse gases — play a central role.

Livestock production is a major source of methane, released during digestion in ruminant animals and from manure management. Nitrous oxide emissions arise largely from the use of synthetic fertilizers and manure applied to soils, where excess nitrogen is converted into greenhouse gases by soil microbes. While these processes are biological, their scale is driven by human decisions about production intensity, feed systems, and nutrient management.

Land-use change is another critical factor. The expansion of cropland and pasture has been a leading cause of deforestation and ecosystem conversion. When forests, wetlands, and grasslands are cleared, large amounts of carbon stored in vegetation and soils are released into the atmosphere. At the same time, the loss of these ecosystems reduces the planet’s capacity to absorb future emissions.

Taken together, agriculture, forestry, and other land use account for a substantial share of global greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions are deeply embedded in food systems that prioritize short-term yields, uniformity, and low prices, often at the expense of ecological balance.

Industrial Intensification and Its Limits

The post–World War II transformation of agriculture dramatically increased food production. Synthetic fertilizers, mechanization, pesticides, irrigation, and improved crop varieties enabled unprecedented productivity gains. These advances helped feed a growing global population, but they also tied agriculture closely to fossil fuels and resource-intensive practices.

Over time, many farming systems became simplified and specialized. Monocultures replaced diverse rotations, livestock became concentrated, and nutrient cycles were broken, requiring ever-greater external inputs. While productive in the short term, these systems often degrade soils, pollute water, reduce biodiversity, and increase greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate change exposes the fragility of this model. Systems optimized for stable conditions struggle under heat stress, drought, floods, and shifting pest pressures. The very practices that contributed to emissions are now undermining agriculture’s ability to cope with a changing climate.

Agriculture as a Climate Victim

Farmers are already experiencing climate change firsthand. Rising temperatures reduce crop yields and livestock productivity. Rainfall is becoming more erratic, increasing the risks of both drought and flooding. Extreme events destroy harvests, disrupt supply chains, and threaten food security.

These impacts are unevenly distributed. Smallholder farmers and pastoralists, particularly in low-income regions, are often the most vulnerable despite contributing the least to global emissions. Climate change magnifies existing inequalities in access to land, finance, technology, and markets.

As climate pressures intensify, the risk is not only lower production but greater instability — for rural livelihoods, food prices, and entire regions dependent on agriculture.

A Sector with Unique Climate Potential

Despite its emissions, agriculture holds exceptional potential to contribute to climate solutions. Unlike most sectors, agriculture can both reduce emissions and remove carbon from the atmosphere.

Soils and vegetation are among the largest carbon reservoirs on Earth. When managed well, agricultural lands can store significant amounts of carbon through improved soil organic matter, agroforestry, perennial crops, and landscape restoration. Practices that enhance soil health often deliver multiple benefits simultaneously: increased resilience, improved water retention, greater biodiversity, and more stable yields.

Reducing emissions from agriculture is also achievable. More efficient nutrient use, improved livestock feeding and breeding, better manure management, diversified cropping systems, and reduced food loss and waste can significantly lower greenhouse gas outputs without compromising food security.

Why Transformation Is Urgent

Time matters in agriculture as much as it does in climate science. Soils degraded over decades cannot be restored overnight. Trees take years to grow. Farmers need predictable incentives, secure land rights, and long-term support to change practices.

Delaying action locks in high-emission systems and increases the cost and difficulty of transition. It also risks forcing adaptation through crisis rather than planning — pushing farmers to abandon land, livelihoods, or food production altogether.

The question is not whether agriculture must change, but whether the transition will be proactive, just, and science-based, or chaotic and inequitable.

From Emissions Source to Climate Solution

Transforming agriculture for the climate requires rethinking food systems as a whole. Production, consumption, trade, finance, and policy must align with ecological realities. Farmers must be recognized not only as producers, but as stewards of land, carbon, and biodiversity.

Climate-smart and regenerative approaches are not one-size-fits-all solutions. They must be adapted to local contexts, cultures, and ecosystems. What unites them is a shift from extracting value from nature to working with natural processes.

If done well, agricultural transformation can become one of the most powerful levers for climate mitigation and adaptation — while strengthening food security and rural livelihoods.

Conclusion: Agriculture as a Turning Point

Agriculture helped create the climate challenge, but it can also help resolve it. Few sectors are as deeply connected to land, climate, and human well-being. By transforming how food is produced and landscapes are managed, agriculture can move from being a driver of climate change to a cornerstone of climate resilience.

The future of climate action will be decided not only in power plants and cities, but in fields, soils, and farming communities around the world.

Additional Resources

• Environmental Protection Agency — Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture and Food Supply

• Agriculture Canada — Greenhouse gas emissions and agriculture

• UNFCCC — Agriculture can deliver 30% of climate solutions by 2030 — WWF

• UNDP — 10 ways forward to transform food systems for climate and nature

About the Sustainable Agriculture Network

The Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) is a global impact network transforming agriculture into a force for good — healing and nourishing our extraordinary planet. Together with 37 member organizations across more than 120 countries, SAN advances sustainable, equitable, and climate-resilient farming systems that empower communities and restore nature.

Through radical collaboration, SAN connects farmers, businesses, researchers, and civil society to co-create solutions that tackle the world’s most pressing challenges — from climate change and biodiversity loss to social inequity. Our network’s collective efforts have already helped transform over 40 million hectares of farmland, driving measurable progress toward regenerative and inclusive food systems.

Rooted in integrity, inclusivity, curiosity, empathy, adaptability, and evidence-based action, SAN leads with both urgency and hope. We envision a future where agriculture heals, communities thrive, and nature flourishes.

Learn more at www.sustainableagriculture.network