The Exacerbation of Agricultural Pests as a Result of Climate Change

This paper focuses on the effect of anthropogenic climate on agricultural pests and global food supplies. It explores the challenges twenty-first-century agriculture faces in light of a climate in flux. This paper will outline the empirical evidence and predictive modeling which demonstrate that climate change has a three-fold effect on exacerbating agricultural pest pressures: it creates ideal conditions for pest populations, causes an asynchrony between pest and host plant development, and forces pests to migrate into formerly inhospitable regions. Consideration is given to varied effects of climate change that could mitigate the problem of agricultural pests, though ultimately the net effect of climate change is to the detriment of contemporary agriculture. The paper concludes by arguing that Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques offer a limited but sustainable, and ultimately most effective, defensive measure against climate change-induced pests