Climate and food

The Observer newspaper had a apocalyptic headline last Sunday “Millions face starvation as world warms, say scientists”.  The newspaper had been talking to some climate scientists in advance of a couple of food security conferences.  What they have to say was very worrying.

• Africa will be worst hit, Egypt will lose 15% of its Wheat production if temperatures rise 2C.  Sub-Saharan Africa will face a 5-22% decline in crop yields.
• Europe; will produce 20% less Wheat, 30% less rice and  47% less maize.  Yes Northern areas like Scotland and Russia will become more fertile but Russia will face increasing forest fires.  in any case no country is an an island and higher prices will affect everywhere.
• Americas; Brazil 20% decline in soya production, in California a 10-30% decline in tomato, rice, cotton, Maize and sunflowers by 2050.
• Asia, basic foodstuff production insufficient by 2030 in China.  Malnourishment up by up to 11m in south east Asia.

All this means a huge rise in food insecurity.  Some of the projected falls are not that big, but mask higher demand partly due to higher population.  The projected rise in food costs is 40-50% by 2050 but this takes no account of climate change or peak oil, only population and rising incomes.  The energy embedded in food is huge and we’ve seen from last summer how unreliable our climate can be.  Droughts in the US and floods in Europe caused the biggest crop losses for decades.  I’m talking about all this at the weekend at the Eco-congregation Scotland annual gathering.  The future is worrying.

Neil