Agriculture, Climate Change, and Social Responsibilities of Emerging Leaders

Emerging leaders of this generation have social responsibilities that are quite different from those of the past. Social issues that have not pervaded past leaders challenge the decision-making skills of these emerging leaders. Two of these challenges involve agriculture and climate change.

Agriculture is an important sector of the economy that is highly dependent upon the climate in order to have great food production that is crucial for the survival of human life. It is not a shocking knowledge that agriculture is highly vulnerable to climate variability and change. The international scientific community considers the crucial issue of vulnerability of agriculture to climate variability and change.

Social responsibility, as according to the ISO Strategic Advisory Group on Social Responsibility (SAG), defined it as “is taken to mean a balanced approach for organizations to address economic, social and environmental issues in a way that aims to benefit people, communities, and society.” The social responsibility of emerging leaders involves addressing issues in agriculture and climate change in a manner that will benefit society.

Emerging leaders have inherited the responsibility to implement solutions to these problems. Climate change is complex and its interconnected with other issues such as agriculture demands equally complex solutions. Emerging leaders should create a promising future by taking into account the whole system and the planned and unplanned results of any action.

Climate change is a global issue. However, these should not deter emerging leaders into underestimating their effectiveness in constituting the change in their locality. Leaders should implement local solutions to impact global issues. Emerging leaders should start within their immediate network to further expand their responsibility to fight climate change.

People who are unaware of the problem adds burden to the existing problem. When people lack knowledge, these people perish. It is imperative and a social responsibility of emerging leaders to make aware the issues on how climate change affects agriculture and other sectors to people in their locality. People who are aware become alerted and more vigilant in fighting this issue on climate change.

Agriculture, climate change, and social responsibility of emerging leaders are interconnected with each other. When emerging leaders become enlightened and empowered, they can impact society as they provide solutions to climate change that will greatly benefit agriculture. If these emerging leaders do away with their social responsibility, the human species are doomed to fail in their survival.

Are these emerging leaders socially responsible for facing these challenges? It is hoped that the answer is a resounding “Yes.”