Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumNature - Global Warming To Date Has Already Substantially Cut into Agricultural Output
The climate crisis is already eating into the output of the worlds agricultural systems, with productivity much lower than it would have been if humans hadnt rapidly heated the planet, new research has found. Advances in technology, fertilizer use and global trade have allowed food production to keep pace with a booming global population since the 1960s, albeit with gross inequities that still leave millions of people suffering from malnutrition.
But rising temperatures in this time have acted as a handbrake to farming productivity of crops and livestock, according to the new research, published in Nature Climate Change. Productivity has actually slumped by 21% since 1961, compared to if the world hadnt been subjected to human-induced heating.
With the global population set to rise to more than 9 billion by 2050, the UNs Food and Agriculture Organization has estimated that food production will have to increase by about 70%, with annual crop production increasing by almost one 1bn tonnes and meat production soaring by more than 200m tonnes a year by this point.
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While farming has generally become far more efficient in recent decades, it is increasingly menaced by heatwaves that exhaust farm workers and wither certain crops. Extreme weather events and drought can also affect the output of a farm, particularly smaller operations in poorer countries. In 2019, scientists who analyzed the top 10 global crops that provide the majority of our food calories found that climate change is reducing the worldwide production of staples such as rice and wheat. Again, less affluent countries are suffering worst from this situation.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/01/climate-crisis-global-heating-food-farming-agriculture
-misanthroptimist
(829 posts)The increase in temperature brings with it an increase in extreme weather. Crops need only be destroyed by one extreme weather event per year. If (when) this occurs in more than one food-producing region, prices are going to skyrocket. The poor will starve.
Personally, I think that we have 15-20 years before this happens. It could be much sooner.