From the University of Leeds, the Met Office Hadley Centre and University of Exeter via Eurekalert. No mention of the blueberry crop though.
Crop failures set to increase under climate change
Large-scale crop failures like the one that caused the recent Russian wheat crisis are likely to become more common under climate change due to an increased frequency of extreme weather events, a new study shows.
However, the worst effects of these events on agriculture could be mitigated by improved farming and the development of new crops, according to the research by the University of Leeds, the Met Office Hadley Centre and University of Exeter.
The unpredictability of the weather is one of the biggest challenges faced by farmers struggling to adapt to a changing climate. Some areas of the world are becoming hotter and drier, and more intense monsoon rains carry a risk of flooding and crop damage.
A summer of drought and wildfires has dramatically hit harvests across Russia this year, leading the government to place a ban on wheat exports. This led to a dramatic rise prices on the international commodity markets which is likely to have a knock-on effect in higher prices of consumer goods.
But the authors of the new study, which appears in Environmental Research Letters, argue that adaptation to climate change be possible through a combination of new crops that are more tolerant to heat and water stress, and socio-economic measures such as greater investment.
Lead author Dr Andy Challinor, from the University of Leeds School of Earth and Environment, said: “Due to the importance of international trade crop failure is an issue that affects everyone on the planet, not just those in crop-growing regions.
“More extreme weather events are expected to occur in the coming years due to climate change and we have shown that these events are likely to lead to more crop failures. What we need to do now is think about the solutions.
“It is highly unlikely that we will find a single intervention that is a ‘silver bullet’ for protecting crops from failure. What we need is an approach that combines building up crop tolerance to heath and water stress with socio-economic interventions.”
The team studied spring wheat crops in North East China. They used a climate model to make weather projections up to the year 2099 and then looked at the effect on crop yields. In parallel they looked at socioeconomic factors to determine how well farmers were able to adapt to drought.
While the study only looked at crops in China, the authors say this methodology can be applied to many of the other major crop-growing regions around the globe.
Study co-author Dr Evan Fraser, also of the University of Leeds, said: “It appears that more developed countries with a higher GDP tend to evolve more advanced coping mechanisms for extreme events. In China this is happening organically as the economy is growing quickly, but poorer regions such as Africa are likely to require more in the way of aid for such development.
“What is becoming clear is that we need to adopt a holistic approach: new crops for a changing climate and better farming practices that can only come about under more favourable socio-economic conditions.”
The team will now expand their research to look at other crops in different regions and they will look more closely at the reasons why increased GDP appears to protect against drought.
The research was funded by the Natural Environmental Research Council EQUIP programme and the Economic and Social Research Council Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy.
For more information
A copy of the paper, ‘Increased crop failure due to climate change: assessing adaptation options using models and socio-economic data for wheat in China,’ is available to download here. http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/3/034012
Dr Andy Challinor is available for interview. Please contact Hannah Isom in the University of Leeds press office on 0113 343 4031 or email h.isom@leeds.ac.uk.
Notes to editors
The 2008 Research Assessment Exercise showed the University of Leeds to be the UK’s eighth biggest research powerhouse. The university is one of the largest higher education institutions in the UK and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities. The university’s vision is to secure a place among the world’s top 50 by 2015.
The Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy (http://www.cccep.ac.uk/) was established in 2008 to advance public and private action on climate change through rigorous, innovative research. The Centre is hosted jointly by the University of Leeds and the London School of Economics and Political Science. It is funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (http://www.esrc.ac.uk/) and Munich Re (http://www.munichre.com/).
Contact: Hannah Isom
44-113-343-5764
Isn’t it odd that climate change always means bad news? They haven’t thought of the crops we could grow successfully IF temps do increase. How odd?
What is bad about a return to normal climate variability is that farmers have been encouraged by agribusiness to forget how to farm. Every farmer used to practise crop improvement through selection, that is how we got all of the “heritage” varieties we have today. The main mechanisms for dealing with disease and pests (which are the harbingers of climate change) was crop selection. Soil was managed by manuring, crop rotation, interplanting, fallow and a host of other tricks of the trade. Now you plant your crop developed by Megacorp, fertilize it with your fossil fuel based fertilizer, and spray it with petroleum based pesticides and when the soil loses its capacity to hold water and nutrients, give it a shot of polyacrylamide. Farmers are just the lastest in a long list of skilled tradesmen to be turned into trades-consumers. So if the world does get a little hotter or a little colder, Megacorp probably won’t have the magic bean in their product line, but you can bet that somewhere among the 10,000 varieties of beans in Italy, there will be some that thrive. Hey, what am I thinking, I must be crazy, we should let the experts take care of us. We would surely screw up if left to our own devices.
The unpredictability of the weather is one of the biggest challenges faced by farmers struggling to adapt to a changing climate
When I was a boy, and growing up on a farm, we had three years with a flood, a drought, and then a flood and three damaged wheat crops.
In the last year, I can remember watching fish swim across a road between the paddocks – the water was that high.
That was about 40 years ago – and you know what – the weather now is just as unpredictable as it was then.
No wonder sensible UK farmers go to Piers Corbyn, WeatherAction for forecasts instead of the Met Office!
Following their line of argument gives me hope that the first crops to fail will be the ones that produce biofuels!
*sigh* Remember the good old days, before climate change, when every crop on the face of the Earth received exactly the right amount of sunshine and rain for maximum production?
Man, I miss those times.
“more developed countries with a higher GDP tend to evolve more advanced coping mechanisms for extreme events. In China this is happening organically as the economy is growing quickly, but poorer regions such as Africa are likely to require more in the way of aid for such development.”
So, having forced many African countries to adopt monoculture cash crops to service their debt to the IMF and world bank, we now need to give them charity money so they can diversify again to protect against crop failure.
Duh!
Hmmm…… ‘crop failure’ ……’global climate change’….’world’s leading climatologists’ …..all sounds very familiar where have I read that before… oh yes that CIA 1974 document – (follow the link, it’s well worth reading)
http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/world-exclusive-cia-1974-document-reveals-emptiness-of-agw-scares-closes-debate-on-global-cooling-consensus-and-more/
Our socialist media are very concerned about the problem of climate change in today’s society, here we have them talking about the ‘suspension of democracy’ and the Greens telling us how much easier it is in China!!, “it’s the politicians who decide what is beyond the democratic remit” [just as they did for the EU!!!] -well worth following the link to the Analysis programme on BBC Radio 4 (Sun May 30, 2010).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ethicalman/2010/05/are_we_doomed_by_democracy.html
It’s way past time we rooted out the weeds from the climate paddock.
Posted this on Judith Curry blog;
Richard Holle | October 7, 2010 at 5:07 am | Reply
You don’t have family connections to real farmers do you?
There is always a question as to what is the best crop to plant, and how to schedule the rotation patterns for best yields over the next 3 to 4 years.
The seed purchase/delivery system is rather flexible from year to year, and quite often is the weather shifts dramatically in early spring and the corn crop drowns out in low lying areas, there is still time to plant a short season crop of soy beans in the same ground. (some of my neighbors did that this last spring).
Usually it takes quite a change in total rainfall to drop the resultant yield more than 50%, lots of irrigated crop land is reserved for those crops that might need to be watered to make a good harvest, normally that crop choice varies from year to year as the weather shifts around naturally.
This over all resultant flexibility from state to state, just allows the type of crop planted to shift to the most optimal locations, no complicated government intervention needed, just farmers talking at morning coffee in front of the overhead TV weather forecast. Or chatting with the silo and train car loaders of the harvested crops, and seed supplier at the local coop elevators, whom are hooked up to state of the art satellite forecasts and hourly up dates of agricultural news and commodity prices.
It isn’t like we are all ignorant of the outside world, and can’t adapt on as quick as a weekly basis, in response to weather and crop growing condition changes as they happen world wide. Not to mention at the farm home PC stations on satellite high speed connections just like the city dwellers have for their individual needs.
It is time to learn that the rest of the world is not as stupid as you perceive your local neighbors to be. Try not isolating your self from other real people, watching sports on the tube, MSM news crap, and sucking up all of the advertising BS.
In times past, it was witchcraft, now we can blame all bad weather on man-made climate disruption. These claims are being made, seemingly, without the slightest rational supporting evidence. They all appear to be competing with each other acting as potential ‘prosecutors for the planet’ to discover real or potential adverse weather events that might be used in a grand effort to condemn modern man in a court where *innocence* must be proved beyond all reasonable doubt.
I feel I must have developed a case of climate guilt fatigue.
Wow, almost as soon as I started to read this paper my bullshitometer started to twitch…
“Authors of the new study, which appears in Environmental Research Letters, argue that adaptation to climate change be possible through a combination of new crops that are more tolerant to heat and water stress”
Article was published by Environmental Research Letters well known for it’s pro CAGW stance and it’s and its green agenda.
“The unpredictability of the weather is one of the biggest challenges faced by farmers struggling to adapt to a changing climate. Some areas of the world are becoming hotter and drier, and more intense monsoon rains carry a risk of flooding and crop damage.”
It starts to get worse. The authors state the obvious, which has been true about the vagaries of farming since the first Neanderthal woman planted the very first seed. They then go on to couch it in terms which make it sound new and frightening.
“They used a climate model to make weather projections up to the year 2099 and then looked at the effect on crop yields.”
Finally we have the coup de grace…
The study relies on computer climate models. Time and time again computer models have produced results which have no relationship to observational phenomenon. Because our climate is driven by deterministic chaos and our observation systems are poor it will take several generations before accurate predictions of climate and subsequent regional effects make them useful for long-term planning.
Dr Andy Challinor, the lead author of the study, should be ashamed of himself for producing such a travesty of a paper. Cargo cult science reaches new heights!
“More extreme weather events are expected to occur in the coming years due to climate change and we have shown that these events are likely to lead to more crop failures. ”
My emphasis. Have they shown this? They are proposing a theory but where is any rigour in this, any proof, any evidence at all. I suggest that the Russian crop failures were as a consequence of weather (as covered numerous times here and elsewhere) and are not evidence of global warming. Just more alarmism.
Darn that weather! Hail damaged corn in Iowa
Still good for silage.
http://www.eveonline.com/externalLink.aspx?l=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eyoutube%2Ecom%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DXz3t4bSDTNc
Sorry but too funny, just what this post needed
I find the most interesting thing about this study, is that it “shows” implying an essence of certainty, rather than typically “suggests” implying an element of doubt! Perhaps it’s just me?
The unpredictability of the weather is one of the biggest challenges faced by farmers struggling to adapt to a changing climate.
Struggling Farmers, this has always made me smile, here in England these sruggling farmers are forever holding up the traffic with their band new tractors.
“Dave N says:
October 7, 2010 at 11:33 pm”
And blogs\articles on “climate change” which allows comments, if those comments appear to be too much in disagreement with the ideology, they are “disappeared” very quickly, esp at the SMH. Also, when you have the Australian MSN focusing on “climate change”, a carbon tax (Another election backflip), the Commonwealth Games, “sports personalities”and their medals being revoked for false starts at the exclusion of EVERYTHING else, I would expect some form of sheepish response to the brainwashing going on. I fully expect for some sort of “climate change” policy to be passed in the lower house in secrecy during the distraction of the games. I mean, politicians like to do this. Thatcher passed draconian policy during the Falklands war.
Pox on all houses in Australian Govn’t. And like KRudd747, Gillard will be a less than a one term wonder. Lets see if another one of my predictions comes true.
Why pay attention to such a waste of words. Nobody can possibly have a clue what the world or the climate will look like in 50 or a hundred years on a global scale, nor what crop qualities will be. 50 years ago we grew absolutely no corn (Zea) in the Netherlands and now it is the no1 crop both in area and yield (cattle feed), grown in dozens of varieties. With the variability of the weather, growing several varieties sort of helps avaraging the annual yield. That is not rocket science. And as far a the extreme weather events go, I have not seen any convincing evidence that there is a climatological change towards more extreme weather events. I think the title of the magazine it was published in should have been enough warning.
Fixed
Simple
Bio-diversity applies also to crops and Man.
###
The research was funded by the Natural Environmental Research Council EQUIP programme and the Economic and Social Research Council Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy.
“it is funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (http://www.esrc.ac.uk/) and Munich Re.”
The money will still be forthcoming so long as we put out a report on our work so that those who provide the cash can be conned it to believing their ridiculous work is good value for money. These cash distributing bodies should be on the top of the list of wasteful organisations which David Cameron should eradicate in the interests of reducing our national debt.
Crying wolf only works for so long!!!
Does this mean Leeds has come out for genetically modified crops? Isn’t gene splicing the best and fastest way to develop specific characteristics? Isn’t this the dreaded “frankenfood”? Ah, the choices of the Greens: starve, freeze, be miserable or just go off as organic fertilizer.
Let’s see…
First they “modeled” the increase of extreme weather events.
Then they “modeled” the ability of farmers to respond to them.
The evidence they collected was from somewhere in China, and the conclusions applied to various places on earth such as Africa, which suggested that ability to respond is tied to socio-economic factors. Except in China where it is “organic”.
Carefull farmers! You’ve been modeled! The researchers know more about what you are going to do before you do it than you do!
“…and in farm news today, models predict that there will be a 70% chance of heavy rain this weekend, causing 43% of farmers to switch seeding from wheat to watermelons. We interviewed Farmer Bob, the largest wheat farmer in the area, and he says ‘I’ll make that decision in four months you stupid f***, not on this week’s weather you idiot, and I may change to hops or barley unless your bullsh*t model is going to guarantee me enough rain and growing season to grow watermellons’. The balance of his comments were not repeatable, but suffice to say that Farmer Bob is ignoring the computer models and may very well not be in business a few year from now. Over to Cindy for that weather report from the east coast where a third successive early frost has killed most of the citrus crop, a side effect of global warming. Cindy?”
200 years ago in australia our land was mostly bush no problem then
“…The team studied spring wheat crops in North East China. They used a climate model to make weather projections up to the year 2099 and then looked at the effect on crop yields. In parallel they looked at socioeconomic factors to determine how well farmers were able to adapt to drought….”
Climate models: $6Billion
Farmer’s Almanac: $5.99 a year
Common sense: Free (but non-existent)