The adaptation and mitigation potential of traditional agriculture in a changing climate

The threat of global climate change has caused concern among scientists because crop production could be severely affected by changes in key climatic variables that could compromise food security both globally and locally. Although it is true that extreme climatic events can severely impact small farmers, available data is just a gross approximation at understanding the heterogeneity of small scale agriculture ignoring the myriad of strategies that thousands of traditional farmers have used and still use to deal with climatic variability. Scientists have now realized that many small farmers cope with and even prepare for climate change, minimizing crop failure through a series of agroecological practices. Observations of agricultural performance after extreme climatic events in the last two decades have revealed that resiliency to climate disasters is closely linked to the high level of on-farm biodiversity, a typical feature of traditional farming systems.