A team of researchers led by the University of Birmingham warns that without significant improvements in technology, global crop yields are likely to fall in the areas currently used for production of the world’s three major cereal crops, forcing production to move to new areas.
With a worldwide population projected to top nine billion in the next 30 years, the amount of food produced globally will need to double. A new study led by researchers from the University of Birmingham shows that much of the land currently used to grow wheat, maize and rice is vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
This could lead to a major drop in productivity of these areas by 2050, along with a corresponding increase in potential productivity of many previously-unused areas, pointing to a major shift in the map of global food production.
The study, published today in Nature Communications, uses a new approach combining standard climate change models with maximum land productivity data, to predict how the potential productivity of cropland is likely to change over the next 50-100 years as a result of climate change.
The results show that:
- Nearly half of all maize produced in the world (43%), and a third of all wheat and rice (33% and 37% respectively), is grown in areas vulnerable to the effects of climate change
- Croplands in tropical areas, including Sub-Saharan Africa, South America and the Eastern US, are likely to experience the most drastic reductions in their potential to grow these crops
- Croplands in temperate areas, including western and central Russia and central Canada, are likely to experience an increase in yield potential, leading to many new opportunities for agriculture
While the effects of climate change are usually expected to be greatest in the world’s poorest areas, this study suggests that developed countries may be equally affected.
Efforts to increase food production usually focus on closing the yield gap, i.e. minimising the difference between what could potentially be grown on a given area of land and what is actually harvested. Highly-developed countries already have a very small yield gap, so the negative effects of climate change on potential yield are likely to be felt more acutely in these areas.
‘Our model shows that on many areas of land currently used to grow crops, the potential to improve yields is greatly decreased as a result of the effects of climate change,’ says lead researcher and University of Birmingham academic Dr Tom Pugh.
‘But it raises an interesting opportunity for some countries in temperate areas, where the suitability of climate to grow these major crops is likely to increase over the same time period.’
The political, social and cultural effects of these major changes to the distribution of global cropland would be profound, as currently productive regions become net importers and vice versa.
‘Of course, climate is just one factor when looking at the future of global agricultural practices,’ adds Pugh.
‘Local factors such as soil quality and water availability also have a very important effect on crop yields in real terms. But production of the world’s three major cereal crops needs to keep up with demand, and if we can’t do that by making our existing land more efficient, then the only other option is to increase the amount of land that we use.’
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First, the 9 Billion population assumption is fantasy. The rate of population growth is leveling off. It peaked in 1970 at 2.08% and it’s down to 1.13% now. Population based on the actual numbers is expected to level off and possibly start decreasing in another 30 years. Second, food production has been increasing due to the increase in CO2. Russia is EXPORTING grain this year.
…Yes but, liberals hate reality…
Is that what they do with it…?
I know. Let’s put solar cells on farmland or use it to grow bio fuels.
About 34% of corn in the US is consumed by the mandate to blend ethanol into motor vehicle gasoline. So when some study authors fret about how much maize is grown in “areas vulnerable to the effects of climate change” does this include corn grown to fulfill such biofuel mandates or not? This is problematic given the debatable net marginal contribution that biofuels make to CO2 emissions.
The simplest way to guarantee more crops is to eliminate stupid food -to-fuel programs. That will give the US a 34% increase right off the bat. The biggest problem reducing food-to-fuel will be keeping crop prices up. The most successful farmers watch the prices like a hawk and respond quickly to changes to keep some sort of decent ROI going.
Replace the green blight with high-density, serially reliable energy producers.
Also, Africa has some of the most fertile land on Earth. There is no excuse for its continued disuse, misuse and trickle-up poverty.
Going from 8 billion to 9 billion means food production has to double?????
Obviously not if they’re all eating from the same menu but they’re not! What I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread so far is that a non-trivial number of those 8 or 9 billion are currently in poverty and malnourished. Bringing them up to parity or even near parity with the ‘developed nations’ means the equation has three variables, not two!
I’ve read Bjorn Lomborg’s book so I know that situation is improving but we aren’t there yet. And I understand that those people need reliable energy too.
These guys actually do believe that everyone else in the world is an idiot.
Even assuming that the warming they predict happens:
When the belt in which corn can be grown shifts poleward, for every acre of land that is lost to corn at the warm end, an acre is gained at the cool end of the belt.
If the weather becomes to warm for corn, the farmer will switch to something else.
On average, water vapor cycles through the atmosphere 40 times per year or each 9 days.
In global warming theory, water vapor levels have to increase by 23% (for water vapor to produce 1.5C of the doubled 3.0C temperature impact.
So each 9 days, it is going to rain 22% more (and evaporation rates will increase by 23%).
Plants, however, will be much less succeptible to evapotranspiration and will grow much more efficiently.
22% more rain, 23% faster soil evaporation, but still the same 9 day water vapor cycling, 50% reduction in evaporation from the plants themselves.
There is no way a climate study can come to the conclusion that yields will decline in that scenario.
Good math and conclusion.
Of course water vapor feedback of that magnitude is a science fiction fantasy.
My god it’s even worse than we thought.
If they put as much effort into fusion as they do into trying bilk taxpayers with this crap we would all have Mr. Fusion units in our flying cars by now. Lol.
Surely the world’s population will decrease or increase according to the amount of food available,
Perhaps it is as simple as the University of Birmingham realizing that their future take from government grants is not looking too good right now. Make another catastrophic prediction, bring in the money.
“…University of Birmingham academic Dr Tom Pugh…”
For someone who’s probably never spent one day rising when the rooster crows, driving a tractor cultivating a field, or loading a truck with grain, he sure does know how to shovel the manure.
I had to laugh when I read the headline: “climate change means land use will need to change to keep up with global food demand”.
That is what has been going on since climate change (specifically global warming) melted all the Ice Age glaciers and enabled population growth, increasing food demand and driving the development of agriculture, which changes land use. About 11,000 years or so…
The timing of this report is ironic in that it coincides with a year of record crops. To me the biggest threat to food production is that the oversupply of food due to increased CO 2 will create an oversupply pushing down prices discouraging farmers from planting and creating future unhealthy volatility in food supplies. I would think that in modelling the next 34 years one should look at what happened since 1982 and feel comforted that even as climate change is occurring ( if it is ) food shortages won’t be one of the global consequences.
This reminds me so much of Good Old Tim Flannery, otherwise known as film flam flannery in Australia. He went about preaching about the land being in persistent drought. “Our Dams will never fill again and the sparce rain that falls will be soaked up on dry earth and taken up by parched plants”. This was the new climate for Australia permanent drought. The goons made him Australian of the Year and then every Sate bankrupt itself building desalination plants instead of dams. In the intervening decade those plants have never run and it cost millions on contract to keep them idle. Queensland flooded with an area the size of Germany and France inundated, and the capital city severely flood damaged. Massive floods covered most of NSW several times the area of the UK. Currently the Southern State of Victoria is suffering 1 in 100 year floods. Virtually every dam in the continent is full many overflowing for the umpteenth time since we built these multimillion dollar desalinators.
Does the average Australian understand the extent of the AGW boondogle?
Ok, I’m going to just say it. They are fiction writers and it isn’t even good fiction. I’ve seen better science in apocalypse novels with disease vectors, Carrington effect electrical disruption, resource motivated wars, etc. Those authors at least started from a rational framework and wove interesting tales that they didn’t mask as pseudo-science modeling predictions. Hmmm. It would be fun to write one of those novels and publish it as scientific prediction based on computer models.
Fortunately, back in reality, agricultural production is growing markedly thanks to increased CO2 levels and demand for water is reduced for the same reason.
Firstly there is a need to minimise food wastage — FAO report stated that this is more than 30% — through transportation, poor storage facilities, poor post-harvest technology;
Secondly there is a need to increase the area under irrigation as diffusion of technology is primarily related to water. Efficient utilisation of water resources plays an important role;
Temperature is not an important factor but production is a function of moisture [rainfall & irrigation] deficiency, nutrient [fertilisers] deficiency & energy [from the Sun] deficiency. They are mutually interactive;
For efficient utilisation of natural resources, cooperative farming plays an important role;
It is not the quantity of food that is essential to keep the health inline but the quality of food is essential — this is possible through organic farming with the traditional animal husbandry farming part to get nutrient diet for healthy living;
Urban population must be brought down.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
If get gmo’d humans that live several decades beyond 100, we might reach 9 billion. Otherwise, probably not.
Weasel word heaven attached to weasel models.
Note how vulnerable is used. That is a huge weasel word in social sciences. Used properly is a useful and powerful word. But once degrees of vulnerability are introduced, then it is modelled to make the absurd seem possible.
” only other option is to increase the amount of land that we use.’”
.
Yup like land in Northern Canada, Russia and Siberia etc where it is too cold right now to grow cereals etc.
Well I believe its unlikely to get that much warmer in the next 100 years, but maybe a good investment, if you believe this tripe would be to invest in a few hundred hectares of this land. Im sure its dirt cheap at the moment.’
Take note Dr S. Jeevanada Reddy!
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
don’t forget this recent study either:
http://www.pnas.org/content/113/38/10589.full.pdf
which tested whether hotter temperatures and higher carbon dioxide levels that we’ll see post-2050 will benefit the kinds of plants that live in California grasslands. They found that carbon dioxide at higher levels than today (400 ppm) did not significantly change plant growth, while higher temperatures had a negative effect.
Native grasslands plants aren’t in the discussion, it is about food crops.
Food production has increased largely because of technology and innovation from the United States over the past 100 years. This is due mainly to an economic system that has promoted land ownership, private enterprise and personal incentive. Climate and any changes in it have played an almost nonexistent roll. If anything an increase in CO2 and warmer temperatures can only be of benefit. The notion otherwise is ill-founded. Creating an economic environment conducive to private incentive is much more critical toward feeding an ever increasing population than worrying about the natural changing climate.
“This could lead to a major drop in productivity of these areas by 2050…”
Will somebody please wake me up when their prediction even begins to look like it might come true? Until they actually get one of their gloom-and-doom predictions right, there is no reason to worry about climate change. No reason whatsoever.
Errrr….
http://www.fao.org/3/a-c0370e.pdf
and
https://www.worldwheatproduction.com
And if there is warming about I’m sure farmers in Kazakhstan and Canada will be only too willing to take advantage of it to expand their production