This article was commissioned by the Organic Agriculture Promotion Center of ZTE University.

Climate change is now a work in progress, so what can be done about organic agriculture, which is limited by natural conditions?

According to a report by the Organic Trade Association (OTA) (Knuth et al., 2020), organic agriculture can help mitigate and cope with the impacts of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and storing large amounts of carbon through cultivation management. What are the adaptation strategies for organic management?

Climate change has become one of the biggest challenges facing humanity, and Pixabay uses big data to find the right crops for the right place and time

First, in an era of increasingly advanced information, organic cultivation management must rely on new technologies, with big data being a key focus. With the rapid change of climate, the relationship between agriculture, which depends on the weather, and meteorology is getting closer. By utilizing central and regional agricultural data, such as arable land area, major crops and yields, combined with data on weather and water resources, and integrating them with each other, prediction models can be built to provide monitoring and early warning mechanisms to cope with possible weather disasters in the future, and to reduce production risks. In addition, it can also be used to understand the local soil conditions, water resources and irrigation situation, and complement the past accumulation of agro-meteorological data, as well as consider the market supply and demand and farmers' technology, to find out the most suitable crops for "timing, location, and people".

If you leave the grass behind, you can leave the water behind?

In the first half of this year (2021), Taiwan suffered the largest drought in a hundred years, and it did not rain for several days in the central and southern parts of the country. In fact, since last year, there was no typhoon landing in the summer and fall seasons of 2020, and the reservoirs received very little money, and the agricultural industry, which looks at the face of the heavens to eat, has been directly affected by the strong impact. According to a previous drought study by the Center for Environmental Change at Academia Sinica, under climate change, until the middle of this century, the future of northern Taiwan's rivers and streams in China's water supply capacity is reduced, and even the agricultural water shortages in the northern region may be more than 40%.

In the first half of 2021, Taiwan suffered the largest drought in a century, and it didn't rain for several days in south-central China.Pixabay

In the face of drought adversity, the physiological mechanisms of the crops will be altered in response to the environment, and yields and growth rates will be reduced, and the water requirements of various crops are different, so "how to use the limited amount of water in a more efficient way" became a major issue in the climate adaptation strategy. The topic of climate adaptation strategy is therefore one of the major issues. In addition to the aforementioned Big Data, which uses scientific data as the basis for calculating crop water requirements, there are also tricks to keep water in the soil during field operations, such as covering the soil surface with rice stalks and cornstalks to minimize water loss; or adopting "untilled cultivation" because untilled cultivation can retain organic matter in the soil, which has a stronger water retention capacity than the soil; and for longterm crops, grass is left behind, which is known as "herbaceous cultivation". The so-called "grass cultivation", according to experimental results, grass cultivation helps to reduce the evaporation of water on the ground, after the grass grows up to cut it down and keep it, can also be used to cover the soil surface, increase the content of organic matter in the soil, of course, or according to the crop to choose the right kind of grass and appropriate management, for the water retention of the soil as well as to enhance the strength of the ground have considerable benefits.

What's more, can we slow down greenhouse gas emissions?

Most of the greenhouse gases emitted from agricultural production come from CH4 and N2O released from soil fertilization, which is more than any other industry. Therefore, if we can reduce the amount of fertilizers we apply, we will be able to mitigate the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on climate change. In the case of organic farming, how do you apply fertilizer without overdoing it, given that you're using the same fertilizers that are allowed in organic farming?

If you want to reduce the amount of fertilizer you apply, you need to think about how to keep the soil fertile, and when the soil is able to efficiently retain nutrients, you can lose weight. One of the ways to do this is to increase soil colloids, which can be divided into inorganic and organic. Inorganic colloids are clay minerals that are not easy to change unless they are intentionally replaced or applied, while organic colloids are "soil organic matter", which, broadly speaking, is the carbon-containing, biologically-derived material in the soil that can be added artificially. Soil organic matter not only provides plant nutrients, but also allows many soil organisms to feed on it and establish a living food web in the field. At the same time, these organisms can also indirectly fix the nitrogen applied by the farmer in their organisms, so that they will not lose it too fast, and through the participation of these consumers, a positive cycle of nitrogen and carbon fixation is generated. The nutrients in the soil will continue to grow, which in turn will reduce the amount of fertilizer used.

The organisms in the soil can indirectly fix the nitrogen applied by the farmer in the organisms, so that the nutrients are not lost too quickly. The community's agriculture is based on fruit tree planting, and the orchard is mainly planted with oranges and persimmons, and the season when water is most needed is winter, but the stream in front of the orchard dries up in winter, so the lack of water resources has led to the continuous extraction of groundwater in the past, but the groundwater belongs to the public **** property, which has also led to the problem of unequal distribution of water. Later, through the cooperation of various organizations such as Chung Hsing University and the Agricultural Research Institute with the region, the ecological engineering method and the natural capital management model of Lishan were applied to *** together create economic and social values.

They built ecological farm ponds to provide habitat for aquatic insects, butterflies, and other species, and used solar energy as a power source for the pumping station, and the community established a mechanism to determine the allocation of water resources. In terms of water quality testing, in addition to monitoring electrical conductivity, dissolved oxygen and BOD values, and in the river there are some indicator species, such as the endemic species of the Chinese Taiwan rock "?" (Acrossocheilus paradoxus), as long as the BOD value in the water is too high, or there are pesticides, fertilizers, etc. will not be able to survive.

In addition, they also use the flat-bellied wasp as a biological control method for the pest Lychee toadflax, and promote herbaceous cultivation, planting purple patchouli thistle to prevent pests, the current area of herbaceous cultivation accounted for 90% of the total area, to increase the ability of the land to naturally contain water. Later, the community even developed its own organic products. In addition to the original fruits, because of the use of organic farming methods, they can make persimmon leaves into "persimmon leaf tea," and add value to the results of organic agriculture by making dried citrus fruits and citrus fudge out of defective citrus fruits. In addition to increasing biodiversity and industrial value, the community has also begun to develop tourism and organize workshops, hoping to pass on the idea of environmental friendliness and their experience to more people.

The picture on the left shows the reservoir for irrigation and the surrounding environment before the improvement of the eco-pond in Gonglaoping. Taichung Gonglao Ping Industrial Development Association The right picture shows after the improvement, optimizing the cistern and the ecological and friendly environment space landscape suitability management. Bureau of Soil and Water Conservation, Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan

In the increasingly severe climate and environment today, with the technology of various industries more and more developed, make good use of this advantage and learn to survive with the environment **** glory ****, is an important trend of the times, after all, there is no species on earth can survive independently of other organisms, in the ecosystem for our services at the same time, human beings should also make changes to the ecological services, and advocate environmentally friendly organic farming practices will be the best way to improve the environment. Organic farming, which promotes a friendly environment, practises this concept.

2021 Organic Farming Forum on 8/18

Theme: Resilience - Organic Farming's Adaptability to Water Adversity

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