Get Smarter on Agriculture and Climate

By David Cleary - Sep 22, 2014 - environmentalleader.com

In a somber scene-setter for the upcoming climate summit in New York, the UN’s meteorological office, The World Meteorological Organization, released a report showing that world carbon emissions in 2013 reached a record high, and atmospheric carbon is increasing at the fastest rate seen in over thirty years. Some hard questions are facing the international order, which has spent much of that period in an interminable round of meetings meant to combat climate change. Against this backdrop, the pertinent question the UN report raises is: why bother? If we appear to be losing the battle, what difference does yet another meeting and round of press conferences make, other than to traffic conditions in lower Manhattan?

It matters when it comes to the subject of food. Rising temperatures and extreme weather events are familiar agricultural foes in much of the world. Farmers have been managing weather since farming began. But all the evidence suggests that climate change will now severely tax the world’s ability to feed itself within a generation. Grains, for example, can grow faster if temperatures are higher. But higher temperatures reduce the amount of time seeds have to mature, and that can depress yields. We don’t have enough data yet to confirm this is happening, but equally we can’t say that it isn’t. It is a clear danger at all scales of agriculture: Iowa corn growers and African smallholders alike.