Agrotechnology

Impact of climate change on agriculture: Should we be worried?

5^th International Conference on Agriculture & Horticulture

June 27-29, 2016 Cape Town, South Africa

Modise DM

UNISA, South Africa

Keynote: Agrotechnol

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 La Nina effects. These may in turn have both desirable and undesirable consequences to the agriculture industry. This keynote 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.

Biography :

Modise DM holds a BSc in Horticulture from the University of Bath (UK), MSc Horticulture from West Virginia University (USA) and PhD Biological Sciences from the University of Nottingham (UK). He was previously a Director of School of Agriculture and Life Sciences and is currently the Deputy Executive Dean at the College of Agriculture & Environmental Sciences at UNISA. He has vast university teaching and management experience. His major research interest is in the physiology of food crops with special emphasis on water/drought stress. He has published research articles and book chapters and has supervised postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

Email: modisd@unisa.ac.za