The global food system is on its way to becoming one of the greatest victims of climate change, even when farmers adapt, warns new research.
A large -scale study, published in Nature, He discovered that for each additional celsius degree of global warming, the agricultural capacity of the world will be reduced by the equivalent of 120 calories less per person per day – Around 4.4% of the current global average consumption.
“When global production falls, consumers are injured because prices rise and it is more difficult to access food and feed our families,” says author Professor Solomon Hsiang of the Stanford Doer Sustainability School. “If the weather is heated in 3 degrees, that is basically like all on the planet that leave breakfast.”
If emissions continue to increase without control, global yields could fall 24% for 2100.
Based on real world observations of more than 12,000 regions in 55 countries, researchers analyzed the productivity and adaptability of the six crops that form the backbone of human diets: wheat, corn, rice, soy, barley and cassava.
They discovered that farmers are already responding to the changing climate: planting different crops, changing planting dates and adjusting tickets such as fertilizer. But those adaptations can only go so far.
Even in the best scenarios, the team estimates that the adaptation will compensate alone A third of global performance losses At the end of the century.
“Any heating level, even when adaptation is taken into account, results in world production losses of agriculture,” says author Andrew Hultgren, an agriculture expert and consumer economy at the University of Illinois Urbano-Champaign.
According to modeling, if emissions continue to increase without control, global yields could fall 24% for 2100. Even if the world quickly reduces emissions to net zero, crops production is expected to fall 11%.
In the west of the United States, for example, current corn and soy powers are particularly vulnerable. “They are simply hammered under a future of high warming,” says Hultgren.
Rice was the only crop that showed a possible advantage: because it thrives in warmer night temperatures, there is a 50% probability that overall rice yields can increase In a hotter world. But for the other five crops, the possibilities of decreasing performance for the end of Century range from 70% at 90%.
With the planet already Around 1.5 ° C hotter than pre -industrial levelsFarmers are seeing the first warning signals: longer droughts, heat waves out of season and unpredictable rains are eroding yields, even when they invest in better fertilizers, irrigation and seed varieties.
Because carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for centuries, the study finds Little difference in projected losses for 2050It doesn’t matter how quickly emissions fall. By then, climate change is expected to drag global yields around 8%.
Beyond the productivity of crops, previous investigations have also shown how high co -reduces crop nutrition, bringing a lot of additional problems.
The research team is now helping those in charge of formulating policies to identify where adaptation efforts can be more effective. Which includes access to Meteorological forecasts, improved fertilizerand basic infrastructure – Resources that many small farmers still lack.
“Farmers know how to keep the ground, invest in infrastructure, repair the barn,” says Hsiang. “But if you are letting the weather depreciate, the rest is a waste. The land that leaves your children will be good for something, but not for agriculture.”
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