Long-term changes in temperature and weather patterns are referred to as climate change.

While these changes may be organic, human activity has been the primary cause of climate change
since the 1800s. This is mainly because burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas- produces
gases that trap heat.
Many believe that the primary effect of climate change is increased temperatures. However,
the temperature rise is just the start. Since everything on Earth is interconnected, changes in one
area can have an impact on changes in all other areas because the Earth is a system.
Intense droughts, water scarcity, severe fires, rising sea levels, flooding, melting polar ice,
catastrophic storms, and declining biodiversity are just a few of the effects of climate change that are
currently being felt. In agriculture, decreased quality of grain and livestock feed can make pasture and
rangeland less suitable for grazing livestock. Crop growth may be hindered by more intense
precipitation and temperatures. Severe weather conditions, such as droughts and floods, can damage
crops and lower yields.

The Philippines is one of the countries that is most vulnerable to climate change in the world,
with climate impacts disproportionately affecting agricultural and rural communities. Facing
challenges such as low productivity, underinvestment, and extreme weather events, farmers in the
Philippines are some of the poorest people in the country.
Mindanao is considered the agricultural breadbasket of the Philippines with a diverse set of
crops— including high-value commodities and livestock— produced across its regions. Agricultural
land in Mindanao comprises 41% of the total agricultural area in the Philippines. This vast area of
agricultural land is utilized for diverse purposes. Most of the country’s high-value crops are produced
on the island group. The region is also a key contributor to the country’s total world export volume. Its
bananas, pineapples, and coconuts each account for approximately a third of the world’s total export
volume for these crops. Coffee, aquatic products, seaweed, and coconuts have the potential to serve
domestic and international markets more effectively.
Agriculture in the Mindanao Island group is plagued by a variety of challenges that have
prevented the sector from achieving its full potential in terms of economic growth and poverty
alleviation. These factors include an inequality-producing, export-oriented production model,
pervasive poverty that traps smallholders in subsistence production, limited access to roads and
markets, reliance on rain-fed agriculture, and overlapping or insecure property rights.
Heavy reliance on high-value commodities or plantation crops has not only left the region
vulnerable to volatile international markets, but this growth model has also led to considerable
inequalities produced by preferential access by some groups to multinational organizations that buy
and process their crops for international markets. The inequalities produced by this export-oriented
model have led to limited investment in local processing and value-addition facilities and minimal local
re-investment of profits. These growing inequalities have been linked to the rise of conflict in the
Mindanao region.
Pervasive poverty more generally has trapped many smallholder farmers at subsistence levels
of agricultural production in Mindanao. Of the roughly four million farmers in the region, only 700,000
are producing a marketable surplus. Farmers are limited in their growth by poor organization and a
lack of access to markets. Given the disproportionate reliance on commodity and export-oriented
crops, many farmers in Mindanao lack access to regional and national markets, which are expanding
due to population growth.
 Agriculture is important to Mindanao, and climate variability and hazards may seriously
threaten the sector.

Climate change has the potential to disrupt crop productivity and in turn affect domestic
agricultural production, consumption, and food security. Moreover, the global impact of climate
change could stimulate changes in international and domestic commodity prices, ultimately having
negative effects on both the Philippine's agriculture and the country’s economy. Developing
agricultural adaptation and growth strategies is of utmost importance, not only to maintain domestic
agricultural production but also to underpin broader economic growth and structural transformation.
Sustaining agricultural production growth to help achieve inclusive growth and poverty reduction is a
key goal for the Philippine government.
Climate not only affects the agricultural crop itself but also the different production activities
and processes. An assessment was conducted to know the possible effects of climate change on
crop productivity. Possible effects of the projected climate change on corn productivity in the
Philippines were assessed under different climate change scenarios (A1, A2, B1, and B2) for different
periods (i.e. 2020, 2050, and 2080) using the developed methodological framework using different
research tools such as the geographic information system, stochastic weather data generator
(SIMMETEO), and crop simulation model (CERES-Maize). Climatic change will surely affect corn
productivity in the country. The extent of the impact depends on the location and cropping season.
The assessment showed that wet season cropping is negatively affected by climate change. This was
observed across different climate change scenarios and periods. A decreasing yield trend during the
wet season was also observed from the year 2020 to 2080.
In South and Southeast Asia, there is concern about how climate change may affect El Nino or
Southern Oscillation events since these play a key role in determining agricultural production.
Furthermore, problems arising from the variability of water availability and soil degradation are
currently major challenges to agriculture in the region. These problems may be exacerbated in the
future if global climate change projections are realized. Many studies have considered strategies for
improving agricultural management, based on the optimization of crop management decisions.
Climate change analyses could be further strengthened by economic studies that integrate the
potential use of natural resources across sectors.