Page 144 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 1

The significance of pastures

practices. Food sovereignty is a proposition that takes environment/nature
not as a source, but as a collective entity and that prioritizes “agro-ecological
production systems” (Hazar Kalonya et al, 2020).
Additionally, modern consumers, who are in search of quality as well as
safety, demand sustainable, eco-friendly, agro-ecological food production
systems, which increases the income of rural producers. This also helps
mitigate climate change and preserve bio-diversity (TÜBİTAK, 2021). The
diversity of large-scale agricultural system regarding semi-natural habitats
and rural landscapes is also important for economic sectors that support each
other, such as agriculture, agro-tourism and eco-tourism (Hazar, 2018).
In recent years, the interaction between the environment/nature and
agricultural systems in Türkiye have gained an increasingly important position
in the national and local political agenda towards climate change mitigation
and adaptation strategies and rural development. This brings about intensive
pressure on biodiversity, greenhouse gases and other factors. In addition,
industrial agri-food systems with a lot of economic, ecological and social
negative effects, have been globalized through neo-liberal agricultural policies
since the 1980s (Karakaya and Ayalp, 2017; İzmir Kalkınma Ajansı (İZKA), 2021).
The main results of this situation include the increase in migration from rural
to urban areas and the formation of city regions, and the ensuing poor state
of agriculture sector and rural producers in poverty.
The change in the agricultural product pattern due to the demand for
animal feed by intensive industrial cattle breeding (usually indoors), and for
silage that is genetically modified organisms (GMOs) such as corn are the
things that directly affect food security (Özkaya and Özden, 2014). Another
issue that poses a threat to food security is drought, water scarcity and the
ensuing change in the production pattern based on climate change.
Climate change has direct effects on livestock breeding such as heat stress,
the decrease in milk production and quality, the fall in growth and fertility,
and the diseases becoming more widespread. It also has indirect negative
impacts such as the decrease in the availability of forage plants and water.
Various climate scenarios and projections predict a decrease in agricultural
production and an increase in the global food security gap (Cline, 2007; Malik
et al. 2015; Koç and Uzmay, 2016). It is predicted that due to climate change
effects, the area of meadows and pastures will increase due to the warming
of the cool areas, which will also contribute to the development of livestock
breeding. However, in places with extremely heat, there will be a decrease
in silage production due to drought, which will lead to a loss in productivity
(Gökkür and Uysal, 2020).

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