Cereal Crops in the Era of Climate Change: An Overview

Cereal crops, being the most consumed food material on the planet, face significant challenges confronted by climate change. The detrimental impacts of climate change have threatened food security globally by hampering the production and quality of major cereal crops like rice, wheat, and maize. Understanding and assessing the challenges these crops face is critically important for developing meticulous strategies to enhance resilience. In this chapter, we explored an overview of the adverse effects of climate change on the production of cereal crops. We discussed how the issue of climate change is rising day by day with the emissions of greenhouse gases from multiple sources and highlighted the various stresses that cereal crops are facing. Moreover, this chapter explains the economic consequences of climate change on cereal production and examines the strategies being adapted to mitigate these changes. A comparison of the production of the top 5 cereal crops between 2000 and 2022 with the top 3 producers has been discussed briefly. Modern breeding technologies, agronomic best management (ABM) approaches, and climate-smart farming practices must be investigated to tackle the challenges. By using genomics approaches like marker assisted selection, genomic selection and genome editing like CRISPR/Cas9, researchers can create crop varieties that are more resistant to the negative consequences of climate change. Moreover, we emphasized the collaboration of various sectors in making an effective sustainable practice policy, its implementation and educating the farmers through the support by government which is the need of the hour. Through these collective developments and the promotion of sustainable agricultural methods, we can minimize the impact of climate change.