“Mechanizing Catch Crop and Trap Crop Planting Methods In Diversified, Small-

Farm Vegetable Enterprises during Periods of Climate Change.”

Background of the Problem

Global, regional, and local food security are all expected to be impacted by
climate change. Food availability, access, and quality can all be affected by climate
change. For instance, projected temperature rises, altered precipitation patterns,
changes in extreme weather events, and decreased water availability might all have a
negative impact on agricultural productivity. Delivery of food can be delayed as a result
of an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, and future
forecasts predict an increase in the frequency of price spikes related to extreme
occurrences. Temperature rises have been linked to contamination and deterioration.
Any climatic disruption of food distribution and delivery, whether domestically or
internationally, may have a considerable effect on access to food as well as safety and
quality. According to the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) study, the summer of
2021 saw one of the country's worst summer droughts ever, with serious consequences
for food production and the economy as a result of a decline in traffic, the amount of
goods transported, and the number of people employed in the agricultural sector. These
changes in transportation make it harder for farmers to sell their grains to other markets,
which has an impact on food prices all across the world.
Impacts to the global food supply concern food shortages can cause
humanitarian crises and national security concerns.  They also can increase domestic
food prices. 

Immediate Potential Solutions

Strong problem-solving skills are among the most important traits that an
Agricultural and Biosystems’ Engineer can have. A big portion of an Agricultural
Biosystems’ Engineer's job involves analyzing situations like this, spotting issues, and
then coming up with solutions. As a perceptive engineer, groups were focused on how
to promote efficient farming which are the trap and catch crop planting that may support
agriculture and mitigate the consequences of climate change towards the crops that
farmers have sown. Mechanization has evolved mostly in reaction to farming's labor-
intensive character, according to what the research group discovered. As a result, in
order to fully utilize machinery that is frequently created for particular crop requirements,
farming systems have become more dependent on monoculture systems. Equipment
designed for smaller farms with varied operations has a propensity to force the
separation of one cash crop from another. The following are some potential solutions
such as;
A catch crop is a quickly developing crop that is cultivated in agriculture in
between repeated plantings of a major crop. For instance, most vegetables can be
grown between rows of radishes, which mature from seed in 25–30 days, and can be
harvested well in advance of the main crop. Alternately, a catch crop might be sown in
between some crops' fall planting and spring harvest.
A trap crop is a plant that lures pests away from neighboring crops, typically
insects. Without the use of pesticides, this type of companion planting can prevent the
primary crop from being destroyed by pests. To keep insects and other pests out of the
field, a trap crop is used. In small-scale greenhouse, garden, and field tests, many trap
crops successfully redirected pests away from focus crops; a limited subset of these
plants has been shown to lessen pest damage at larger commercial sizes. The fact that

Appealing trap plants only offer protection to nearby plants if the insects do not go back
into the main crop is a typical rationale for reported trap cropping failures.
Thus, Agricultural and Biosystems’ Engineers promotes these efficient farming
and have quested that these methods offer additional ecosystem services like
enhanced water retention, less soil erosion, lower production costs, and flexibility to and
mitigation of climate change. Because it uses regionally appropriate companion plants
and uses less inorganic fertilizer, the system is more environmentally and economically
sustainable. This decreases its carbon footprint.