This story is originally Appear Fox It is part of Climate cooperation.
Global, Humanity produces more food Ever, but this harvest is concentrated in a handful of baking ships.
more than A third of wheat and barley exports in the world It comes from Ukraine and Russia, for example. Some of these highly productive agricultural lands, including the main crop cultivation areas in the United States, are on the right path to see the most declining in the harvest due to climate change.
This is bad news not only for farmers, but also for everyone who eats – especially because it becomes difficult and more expensive to feed a more crowded and hungry world, according to a new study published in the magazine nature.
In light of the moderate greenhouse gas emissions, six main basic crops will witness a decrease of 11.2 percent by the end of the century compared to a world without warming, even at a time when farmers are trying to adapt. The largest drops do not occur in the most important and margin agricultural lands, but in places that are already considered the main food producers. These are areas like the American Middle West, which is blessed with good soil and the ideal weather for lifting nutrients such as corn and soybeans.
But when this weather is lower than perfect, it can significantly reduce agricultural productivity. The harsh weather has already started eating in harvest this year: floods The rice was destroyed in Tajikistanand The option in SpainAnd Banana in Australia. Severe storms in the United States this spring Millions of dollars cause damage to crops. In the past years, the intense heat has led to a significant decrease in Wild grapes, olives and grapes. With climate change, the high medium temperatures and the change of rainfalls are preparing to reduce yield, while weather events such as drought and floods that reach the maximum often can erase the harvest often.
“It is not ambiguity that climate change will affect our food production,” said Andrew Holtagern, an agricultural researcher at the University of Illinois Champin. “This is the most exposed weather sector in the economy.”
Farmers do what they can – test Various crop varieties It can carry changes in the climate, and convert Time when they growAnd switching them to use Fertilizers and waterAnd investing in Infrastructure such as water tanks.
The question is whether these adjustments can continue to keep up with warming. To find out, Hultgren and his team looked at crop data and weather from 54 countries around the world dating back to the 1940s. They specifically looked at how farmers are adapted to the changes in the climate that actually occurred, focusing on corn, wheat, rice, oxava, chrome and soybeans. Completely, these crops provide two thirds of human calories.
In the nature paper, Holtger and his team mentioned that in general, adaptation can slow down some crop losses due to climate change, but not all of them.
The decrease in our food production may be devastating: for each degree of warming, global food production is likely to decrease by 120 calories per person. Even this takes into account how climate change can make growth seasons longer and how more carbon dioxide in the air can encourage plant growth. In the scenario of moderate greenhouse gas emissions 2 and 3 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100Increased income and adaptations would compensate a third of crop losses around the world.