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A new study finds that unless climate change is substantially understated, rising temperatures will disrupt food production around the world and possibly change the way we eat.
The continued buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could jeopardize “nearly a third of global food crop production and more than a third of livestock production” by 2081-2100, the peer-reviewed study, published by researchers at Aalto University in May, says. . Espoo, Finland, concludes it.
The findings put a good point on what climate scientists have warned for decades: that climate change will make certain parts of the world unable to produce food for the people who live there.
The study indicates that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rates, the regions most at risk are South and Southeast Asia, as well as the Sudanese Sahel region in Africa. But the vast majority of land on Earth will be affected.
However, there is hope: if the world’s nations succeed in their goal of limiting average global temperatures to warming between 1.5° and 2°C, the impacts on food production will be reduced.
Several other studies have looked at how climate change affects individual crops or growing regions, and some have concluded that global warming is already wreaking havoc on food production. Others argue that dietary changes are necessary to prevent temperatures from rising any further.
Below is a sampling of the growing body of research on how climate change is affecting the world’s diet. As some food industries feel the impact, their products won’t go away, but prices may rise and change behaviors.
vintage
A worker picks grapes on a vineyard in Napa Valley, California. (Robert Galbraith/Reuters)
In early April this year, after an unusually hot March, France experienced several days of severe frosts that destroyed grape crops, resulting in losses estimated at $1.7 billion to $2.3 billion. A study from the World Weather Attribution research consortium concluded that climate change made a “false spring” event 60 percent more likely.
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Previous studies have concluded that rising temperatures will reduce the area in California’s Napa Valley and other grape-growing regions in the United States that will be able to continue producing fine grapes.
A study by the Union of Concerned Scientists concluded that “over the next century, the area suitable for producing premium wine from grapes is likely to shrink and shift.” “According to higher emissions projections, fine wine grapes can only be grown in a thin strip of land along the California coast, with premium wine producing regions shifting northward to the Oregon and Washington coasts.”
beer
Beer mugs in Abensberg, Germany. (Michael Dalder/Reuters)
A 2018 study published in Nature found that atmospheric disturbances from climate change will also affect beer production, thanks to the impact on barley crops.
“Beer is the world’s most common alcoholic beverage by volume consumed, and the productivity of its main ingredient, malt, drops sharply during periods of severe drought and heat,” the study authors wrote.
Depending on the severity of drought and rising temperatures, barley yields are expected to decline anywhere from 3 to 17 percent annually. As a result, Chinese and American researchers have concluded that beer prices could double in some parts of the world by the end of the century.
coffee and chocolate
Coffee beans in a shop window in Dublin, Ireland. (Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Alarm bells rang out in Europe, which accounts for a third of global coffee consumption, when research released this month found that 35 percent of regions where the European Union imports crops, including coffee beans, would be threatened by severe climate-induced drought. A change that is likely to disrupt food production.
A study conducted in April found that coffee production in Ethiopia would be particularly at risk. “We conclude that depending on the drivers of convenience and projected impacts, climate change will significantly impact Ethiopia’s niche coffee sector, and region-specific adaptation measures are required to build resilience,” the study authors wrote in Nature.
Cocoa beans, which are used to make chocolate, face a similar threat from rising temperatures and drought. A 2018 study published in the journal PLOS One concluded that “the effects of drought on agroforestry for cocoa could serve as a ‘coal mine canary’ warning of problems that will come in both semi-natural and natural farming and vegetation due to increased density and frequency.”
Meat
Livestock on a farm in Tomales, California (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, meat and dairy production accounts for 14.5 percent of annual greenhouse gas emissions. Citing deforestation undertaken to create grazing lands for livestock, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change included a section in its landmark 2019 report that declared the potential for eating less meat “could provide significant opportunities for adaptation and mitigation while generating significant participation.” aspect of human health.
“We don’t want to tell people what to eat,” Hans-Otto Portner, an ecologist who co-chairs the IPCC’s Working Group on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, told Nature. “But it would be really beneficial, for both the climate and human health, if the people in many rich countries were to consume less meat, and if the policy would create appropriate incentives for this.”
Beef is, by far, one of the worst food sources for its impact on climate change, in part due to the methane gas produced by cows. Beef production produces 60 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of meat, more than double that of second-placed lamb, according to Forbes.
wheat and corn
A damaged corn crop in Kansas in 2012 (Jeff Tuttle/Reuters)
Wheat is one of the crops that humans need to ensure their survival in the coming decades, and it is a staple in the global diet that accounts for 20 percent of all calories that people consume. While wheat yields have increased in some countries in the short term with an increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the main concern is the prevalence of drought in parts of the world where it is grown.
A 2019 study published in Science Advances found that unless average global temperatures are prevented from rising, major droughts will affect 60 percent of the areas where wheat is grown. This is much higher than the current 15 percent of wheat-growing areas affected by drought conditions. The study indicated that the background to the high prevalence of drought is that the demand for wheat is expected to increase by 43 percent from 2006 to 2050.
A similar dynamic is at play with corn, where 30 percent of the world’s supply is grown in the United States. Weather patterns resulting in widespread drought or flooding can interfere with the corn growing season and are expected to reduce yields by 20 to 40 percent. More. The decade from 2046 to 2055, concluded a study released in April.
“Bad weather can take the form of temperature extremes such as cold waves or heat waves during the growing season,” the authors wrote. “It can also be expressed as excessive variability in rainfall resulting in droughts or floods, including floods before the growing season of a crop that prevent the cultivation of that crop in the first place.”
almonds
A field of dead almond trees next to a field of growing almond trees in California’s Central Valley in 2015 (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)
California, currently experiencing a massive drought, is the world’s largest producer of almonds, growing nearly 80 percent of the world’s supply. Thanks to rising temperatures and droughts, which depleted groundwater and deprived the condition of strong snow mass, the future of water-intensive crops is becoming more and more dangerous.
However, as with many other crops, climate change may provide an opportunity to grow almonds in currently too cold latitudes to support them.
Researcher Lauren Parker of the University of California, Davis, is studying whether almond trees, as temperatures continue to rise, can thrive in states like Oregon and Washington.
“With climate change, what we would expect is to see a reduction in frost risk even for almonds, which bloom very early in the year,” Parker told Yale Climate Connections.
pet food
Fly larvae wait to be harvested on a farm near Cape Town, South Africa. (Mike Hutchings/Reuters)
It turns out that what people feed their pets has a huge impact on climate change. A 2020 study published in the journal Global Environmental Change found that annual production of pet food worldwide resulted in an average greenhouse gas emissions of 106 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. The study noted that in terms of emissions, this is equivalent to a country the size of the Philippines.
This is due in part to the rise in “premium” pet foods, according to the study, which more closely reflect a meat-heavy human diet. At present, pets consume approximately 20 percent of meat and fish in a given country. But what if humans changed what they fed their pets, and replaced meat with insect protein? While this idea may seem inspired by a dystopian science fiction movie, it is actually happening in many countries.
In fact, a 2017 study recommended that insect protein replace protein in meat for humans as well, as a way to combat climate change, despite some accompanying caveats.
“Insect production has great potential in terms of providing food sustainably to a growing population,” the study authors wrote. “However, there is a need for further technological development of this sector and monitoring of the effects of these developments on the environmental impact of insect production.”
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