Climatic Impact on Organic Farming

Climate change represents one of the major threats to modern society related to food safety and security. In this context, the agricultural sector and related chains have a dual role: (i) to contribute to climate change; and (ii) to represent the first sector affected by climate change. To provide healthy and safe food, it is necessary to transform the agri-food system and move towards sustainable practices of agricultural and food production that can mitigate and/or adapt to inevitable climate changes. Climate change, which is increasingly evident, is challenging agriculture, specifically organic farming. Agricultural production under organic practices is characterized by the adoption of sustainable practices in an integrated approach, even if sometimes the integrated pest management may show weak points that limit control and/or management techniques against new threats brought by global warming. Therefore, organic farming is facing new stresses brought by increasing temperatures, rainfall reduction, allochthonous weeds and pathogens in the agro-ecosystems. Therefore, in order to achieve a sustainable and resilient agricultural production system against climate change, it is strongly necessary to follow regenerative agricultural practices that replace intensive approaches of conventional agriculture, which is a major cause of greenhouse gas emissions and alteration of agro-ecosystems.