Mawara Tahir
Do you think that the future holds a better or worse standard of nutrition due to alterations in climate?
Food is one of society’s key sensitivities to climate. The total world population is expected to grow to nearly 10 billion by 2050. With 3.4 billion additional mouths to sustain, and the developing desire of the working class for meat and dairy in emerging nations, worldwide interest for sustenance could increment by somewhere in the range of 59 and 98 percent.
This implies that agribusiness around the globe needs to undergo innovation in food production methods in order to see incremental yields. Scientists state that the impacts of higher temperatures, extreme weather, drought, increasing levels of carbon dioxide and rising sea levels threatens to diminish the quantity of food produced as well as jeopardize the quality of our food supplies.
While modern farming technologies and advances in cultivating techniques have decreased vulnerabilities and increased production, the effect of the latest droughts in the USA, China and Russia impacted worldwide cereal production.
According to an ongoing investigation, worldwide vegetable and legume production yields could fall by 35 percent if greenhouse gas emissions keep proceeding at this rate. Moreover, by 2100, water scarcity would have increased salinity and accelerated ozone thinning.
But climate change will not only affect crops, it will also impact meat production, fisheries and other fundamental aspects of our food supply.
Amongst the looming vulnerabilities are the world’s fisheries, which are already stressed by overexploitation and pollution. Warming surface waters in the oceans, rivers and lakes, as well as rising sea levels snd melting ice will adversely affect many fish species.
Eighty percent of the world’s yields are rain fed and thus most farmers rely upon the predictable weather patterns in order to deliver their harvests. However, climate change is altering rainfall patterns around the world.
Flooding, resulting from the growing intensity of tropical storms and rising sea levels, can drown and suffocate crops. Since floodwaters can transport sewage, manure or pollutants from roads, ranches and gardens, more pathogens and poisons could find their way into the food we eat.
Furthermore, warmer weather will lead to faster evaporation, resulting in more droughts and less water available for irrigation. Climate change will not only affect food production and the way people consume food, but as optimal growing conditions shift, communities that depend on fishing or farming for their livelihoods will also be disrupted.
According to Peter de Menocal, Dean of Science at Columbia University and director of the Center for Climate and Life – “Food security is going to be one of the most pressing climate related issues, mainly because most of the world is relatively poor and food is going to become increasingly scarce and expensive”.
Global warming may profit certain crops, such as potatoes in Northern Europe and rice in West Africa, and empower some farmers to develop new harvests that just flourish in hotter areas.
Environmental change could make it outlandish for farmers to raise their customary crops – perfect growing conditions may shift to higher altitudes, where the terrain or soil may not be as fertile – shrinking the land area as well as profits in the agribusiness.
Columbia’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society is leading a project called Adapting Agriculture to Climate Today, for Tomorrow, or ACToday. Part of Columbia World Projects, ACToday will help to maximize food production and reduce crop losses by more precisely predicting and managing flood and drought risks, improving financial practices, and when a food crisis unfolds, identifying the need for relief efforts.
At the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, they are building quantitative economic models to examine vulnerabilities in the food system under different scenarios; they will use the tool to explore how altering certain policies might reduce the vulnerabilities of the food system to disruptions.
