US Scientists Foresee Global Food Crisis

New data issued by scientists in the US presents an alarming vision of the future, highlighting how, by 2100, environmental changes could lead to a food crisis that would affect many millions of people around the world. Accelerated global warming, it says, may well impact both on livestock and on crops with the result that already poor areas – the subtropics and tropics – will become poorer still.

Temperature Increases

Meanwhile, writes the report, the highest temperatures observed in temperate areas – isolated events at current – will become more commonplace. “In temperate regions, the hottest seasons on record will represent the future norm in many locations”, it said.

The report was carried out by atmospheric sciences professor David Battisti, from the University of Washington, and Stanford University’s Professor Rosamond Naylor, who heads the Program on Food Security and the Environment in operation there.

“The stresses on global food production from temperature alone are going to be huge”, Prof. Battisti stated, adding: “...that doesn't take into account water supplies stressed by the higher temperatures.”

Climatic Change

He urges that, in preparation for these climatic shifts, work is undertaken to manufacture crops capable of surviving in a different, hotter environment.

During the research element of the study that Battisti and Naylor carried out, they used future model data generated by over twenty climate models alongside their own observations. From this, they deduced that the likelihood of tropical and subtropical temperatures recorded during crop-growing season exceeding past and present-recorded figures as in excess of 90 per cent.

“We are taking the worst of what we've seen historically and saying that in the future it is going to be a lot worse unless there is some kind of adaptation”, Professor Naylor explained.

She continued: “This is a compelling reason for us to invest in adaptation, because it is clear that this is the direction we are going in terms of temperature and it will take decades to develop new food crop varieties that can better withstand a warmer climate.”

2003 Heatwave

Recent years, said the report, had given a foretaste of the future, with the 2003 European heatwave being one example. Then, prime crops such as fruit and maize were affected – animals too – while the soil lost water.

Overall, close to 50,000 people are thought to have died.

In Italy, the situation shaved 36 per cent off the country’s 2002 maize-yielding figures, and a similar thing also happened in France.

“I think what startled me the most is that when we looked at our historic examples there were ways to address the problem within a given year”, Professor Naylor said.

“People could always turn somewhere else to find food. But in the future there's not going to be any place to turn unless we rethink our food supplies.”

The areas set to be touched more than any others, the tropics and subtropics, said Professor Battisti, currently have a combined population of three billion.

“You can let it happen and painfully adapt, or you can plan for it”, he said, adding: “You could also mitigate it and not let it happen in the first place, but we're not doing a very good job of that.”