{"id":3525,"date":"2018-06-18T06:52:05","date_gmt":"2018-06-18T06:52:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icleiseas.org\/?p=3525"},"modified":"2018-06-18T08:21:11","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T08:21:11","slug":"climate-change-could-heighten-risk-of-global-food-production-shocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/2018\/06\/18\/climate-change-could-heighten-risk-of-global-food-production-shocks\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate change could heighten risk of global food production \u2018shocks\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.eco-business.com\/news\/climate-change-could-heighten-risk-of-global-food-production-shocks\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #00ccff;\">This article first appeared on Eco-Business.com.<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The<span style=\"color: #00ccff;\">\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fao.org\/docrep\/017\/e1900e\/e1900e.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">1972-74 food price crisis\u00a0<\/a><\/span>is the stuff of policy legend. At a time when grain prices had been declining for decades, the global price of wheat tripled in the space of just three years.<\/p>\n<p>The trigger was\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fao.org\/faostat\/en\/#home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #00ccff;\">a poor wheat harvest<\/span><\/a>\u00a0throughout the major breadbaskets of southeast Ukraine and southwest Russia, ravaged by an extremely hot summer with<span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u00a0average temperatures 2-4\u00b0C warmer than usual.<\/span><\/p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element-rich-link--upgraded\">\n<div class=\"rich-link tone-news--item \">\n<div class=\"rich-link__container\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__read-more\">The effects of the resulting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/2534073?casa_token=OsNBv4f_sJIAAAAA:FEea2pRVU8q-7KohHX7cX08Bjf9OfLvEsSTS5l40Hk2djy9jfydGrbCPCVCMxc8WxcEu_QamWFOaqEPnlnhi8JE_lbHJBjZcgAnERDlESrvnzwXg2wI&amp;seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #00ccff;\">\u201cRussian Wheat Deal\u201d<\/span><\/a> \u2013 in which the USSR purchased 10m tonnes of US wheat \u2013 rippled across the global food market and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fao.org\/worldfoodsituation\/foodpricesindex\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #00ccff;\">global grain prices soared<\/span><\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Since the early 1970s, global food markets have only become more integrated. Just three staple crops \u2013 corn, wheat and rice \u2013\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldatlas.com\/articles\/most-important-staple-foods-in-the-world.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #00ccff;\">account for more than half of global calorie intake<\/span><\/a>. For each of these crops, just three countries produce at least\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pubs.acs.org\/doi\/abs\/10.1021\/bk-2011-1089.ch001\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #00ccff;\">40 <\/span><\/a><span style=\"color: #00ccff;\">percent of global production.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>With growing demands for food, animal feed and biofuels, this leaves the global food market exposed to further price shocks. In 2007-08, for example, the overstretched grain market needed only\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pubs.acs.org\/doi\/abs\/10.1021\/bk-2011-1089.ch001\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #00ccff;\">relatively small crop losses in Australia<\/span><\/a>\u00a0(caused by heatwaves),\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1111\/j.1728-4457.2010.00354.x\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #00ccff;\">record-high oil prices and poor policy choices\u00a0<\/span><\/a>to cause the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/bostonreview.net\/rosamond-naylor-and-walter-falcon-our-daily-bread-global-food-crisis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #00ccff;\">world food crisis of 2007-08<\/span><\/a>. The result was a doubling of cereal prices and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/chapter\/10.1007\/978-3-319-28201-5_1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #00ccff;\">food riots in dozens of countries<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In a new paper, published in\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/early\/2018\/06\/04\/1718031115\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #00ccff;\">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/span><\/a>, my colleagues and I show that climate change will heighten the risk of production shocks across the world\u2019s biggest crop producers.<\/p>\n<h4>Optimum temperature threshold<\/h4>\n<p>The summer of 1972 was one of the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/science.sciencemag.org\/content\/323\/5911\/240\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">10 per cent hottest Ukrainian summers of the last century<\/a>. But, by the middle of this century, these kind of summers\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/science.sciencemag.org\/content\/323\/5911\/240\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">could become the norm<\/a>, if global carbon emissions continue unabated.<\/p>\n<p>High temperatures hurt plant development in multiple ways, including reduced plant fertility, reduced growth of the grain kernels, and increased water and energy use.<\/p>\n<p>Modern-day crops have been bred and selected over decades and centuries to thrive in our climate, but they perform poorly beyond an optimum temperature threshold.<\/p>\n<p>You can see this in the chart below. It shows an illustration of how crop yields vary with average temperature \u2013 rising to a peak (indicated by the black diamond) in the most favourable conditions, before declining again as temperatures increase further.<\/p>\n<p>An increase in global temperature causes a shift further to the right on this curve (see red dot). In this warmer world, crop yields will not only be lower on average, but also more volatile on a year-to-year basis as conditions exceed optimum levels more frequently.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3526\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3526\" class=\"wp-image-3526 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/icleiseas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/temperaturevsyield.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"777\" srcset=\"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/temperaturevsyield.png 1024w, https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/temperaturevsyield-300x228.png 300w, https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/temperaturevsyield-768x583.png 768w, https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/temperaturevsyield-958x727.png 958w\"  sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-3526\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Schematic representation of temperature-yield relationship: in the absence of breeding for heat tolerance, an increase in mean temperature beyond the optimum temperature (\u2666) will lead to a decrease in mean yield and an increase in yield variability, assuming year-to-year temperature variability stays the same. Source: Tigchelaar et al. (2018)<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_29451\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\">\n<h4 class=\"wp-caption-text\">Corn yields<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<p>In our study, my colleagues from the University of Washington,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.stanford.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #00ccff;\">Stanford University<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<span style=\"color: #000000;\">the University of Minnesota\u00a0<\/span>and I combine data of past corn yields and climate variability with future climate projections to assess how likely corn production shocks will become in the world that is 2\u00b0C or 4\u00b0C warmer than\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.carbonbrief.org\/challenge-defining-pre-industrial-era\">pre-industrial levels<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Corn is the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pubs.acs.org\/doi\/abs\/10.1021\/bk-2011-1089.ch001\">most grown crop in the world by volume<\/a>. It plays an important role in international food markets due to its multiple uses \u2013 not just for human consumption, but also as an animal feed, a sweetener and a biofuel. We find that in nearly all locations where corn is currently grown, yields will decrease in response to warming.<\/p>\n<p>You can see this in the maps below, which show projected corn yield changes under 2\u00b0C (left) and 4\u00b0C (right) of warming. The shading shows yield gains (green) and declines (purple).<\/p>\n<p>Four countries \u2013 the US, China, Brazil and Argentina \u2013 produce\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fao.org\/faostat\/en\/#home\">more than two thirds of the world\u2019s corn<\/a>. In these countries, we project that the mean total production will decline by 8-18 per cent if the planet warms by 2\u00b0C, and 19-46 per cent with 4\u00b0C of global warming.<\/p>\n<p>This greatly outweighs the small areas of projected yield increases in western Europe and southern China.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, on average,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fao.org\/faostat\/en\/#home\">986m tonnes of corn<\/a>\u00a0are produced globally each year \u2013\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fao.org\/faostat\/en\/#home\">125m tonnes of which are traded internationally<\/a>. Our work suggests that in response to 2\u00b0C of global warming, total production in the top four corn exporters (the US, Brazil, Argentina and Ukraine) would decline by 53m tonnes \u2013 equivalent to around 43 per cent of current global exports.<\/p>\n<p>For 4\u00b0C of warming, projected production declines in these countries increase to 139m tonnes, which equals 14 per cent of current global production and exceeds present day exports.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3527\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3527\" class=\"wp-image-3527 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/icleiseas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/corn_warming.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"430\" srcset=\"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/corn_warming.png 1024w, https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/corn_warming-300x126.png 300w, https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/corn_warming-768x323.png 768w, https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/corn_warming-958x402.png 958w\"  sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-3527\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Warming-induced changes in average corn yield: Change in average yield ( per cent) following annual mean global warming of 2\u00b0C (left) and 4\u00b0C (right). Shading indicates yield increases (green) or decreases (purple). Source: Tigchelaar et al. (2018)<\/p><\/div>\n<h4><strong>Increasing volatility<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Our findings also indicate that not only will average corn yields drop, but that their volatility will increase.<\/p>\n<p>Extreme crop losses in large producing areas are rare: only every 15-to-100 years do we see yield losses greater than 10 per cent and those greater than 20 per cent are virtually unseen.<\/p>\n<p>But these kind of losses become increasingly likely in a warmer climate. This is illustrated in the charts below. They show the probability of different yield levels for the six largest corn producing countries under today\u2019s climate (black line), 2\u00b0C of warming (blue) and 4\u00b0C of warming (red).<\/p>\n<p>From the black lines, you can see that yields tend to vary by a maximum of around 20 per cent either side of average (zero on the x axis). But, as the world warms, this variability widens, with large below-average yields becoming increasingly possible.<\/p>\n<p>In the Ukraine, for example, our projections suggest that under 4\u00b0C of global warming there will be occasional years in which the entirety of the crop is lost.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3528\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3528\" class=\"wp-image-3528 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/icleiseas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/warming_countries.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"595\" srcset=\"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/warming_countries.png 1024w, https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/warming_countries-300x174.png 300w, https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/warming_countries-768x446.png 768w, https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/warming_countries-958x557.png 958w\"  sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-3528\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Warming-induced changes in yield variability in top-producing regions of the six largest corn producing and exporting countries: Probability density functions of yield anomalies with respect to present-day average yield for present-day climate (black), following 2\u00b0C of global warming (blue), and following 4\u00b0C of global warming (red). The vertical gray line denotes a relative yield reduction of 20 per cent and boxed values indicate mean present-day yield in these areas for present-day climate (1999\u20132008; black) and for 2\u00b0C (blue) and 4\u00b0C (red) warming. Source: Tigchelaar et al. (2018)<\/p><\/div>\n<h4>Production shocks<\/h4>\n<p>The risk of simultaneous crop failures across multiple corn exporters is also expected to increase in a warmer climate.<\/p>\n<p>Today, the chance of the top four corn exporters having production losses of more than 10 per cent in the same year is close to zero. However, our findings suggest this likelihood increases to 7 per cent under 2\u00b0C warming and 86 per cent under 4\u00b0C.<\/p>\n<p>Such synchronised production shocks are likely to have tremendous impacts on global cereal markets.<\/p>\n<p>Volatility in global grain prices can result from food production shocks in both exporting countries (reducing supply) and importing countries (increasing demand). Simultaneous production shocks amongst these trading countries will impact those who rely on international trade for affordable food supplies: urban consumers, agribusiness, grain producers, the 2.5 billion people who spend most of their income on food, or the many more people that will populate the planet by 2050.<\/p>\n<p>Trade policies \u2013 and the extent to which they aim to insulate domestic markets from international price fluctuations \u2013 play a crucial role in either amplifying or mitigating the effects of global market volatility. With demand for grains on the rise and governments increasingly intervening in staple grain markets, the pattern of high price volatility of the last decade will likely persist \u2013 and be intensified by a warming climate.<\/p>\n<p>Rising temperatures are by no means the only threat to our global food system: competition for water, a growing population and a growing consumption of animal protein, as well as degradation of fertile land all play their part. Climate change is an unwelcome guest to this party of challenges.<\/p>\n<p>The 2\u00b0C and 4\u00b0C warming scenarios used in our study present vastly different visions of the future. A 2\u00b0C warming limit is enshrined in the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.carbonbrief.org\/interactive-the-paris-agreement-on-climate-change\">Paris Agreement<\/a>, but current commitments are\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.carbonbrief.org\/unep-six-crucial-actions-help-close-worlds-emissions-gap\">insufficient to get us there<\/a>. Warming the planet by 4\u00b0C would take another eight or so decades of emitting carbon at our current rates.<\/p>\n<p>With 1\u00b0C of global warming so far,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.1088\/1748-9326\/2\/1\/014002\/meta\">technological yield gains have been able to outpace the negative impacts of a warmer climate<\/a>. But unless major gains are achieved in breeding crops for heat tolerance, avoiding a low-yield, high-volatility future rests heavily on how quickly global CO2 emissions can be curtailed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article first appeared on Eco-Business.com. The\u00a01972-74 food price crisis\u00a0is the stuff of policy legend. At a time when grain prices had been declining for decades, the global price of wheat tripled in the space of just three years. The trigger was\u00a0a poor wheat harvest\u00a0throughout the major breadbaskets of southeast Ukraine and southwest Russia, ravaged [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-news","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3525"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3532,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3525\/revisions\/3532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}