Biography
Biography: Modise DM
Abstract
Climate Change, a term often used interchangeably with Global Warming, is associated with change in climatic conditions mostly due to human activities, over a prolonged period of time. Human activities such as burning of fossil fuels to produce energy, deforestation, and in fact some agricultural practices, are deemed to invariably increase the concentration of atmospheric gases particularly CO2, methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons (CFC), thus increasing the average world temperature. The increase in average world temperature can very catastrophic, in that this may cause melting or thawing of snow in artic countries thus resulting in floods and warming of the oceans, sea level can rise and corals get damaged, higher temperatures can result in more heat waves or can result in both EL NINO and LANINA effects. These may in turn have both desirable and undesirable consequences to the agriculture industry. This keynote address will evaluate the world and South African policies and practices that are linked to climate change with the view of determining whether we are addressing climate change issues adequately with regards to agricultural production and subsequently food security.