Climate change cost farmers $5bn in crops

Due to the effects of global warming, researchers estimate that cereal farms around the world has lost an estimated US$5bn over the past 20 years. Academics from the Carnegie Institution and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory estimate that harvests of corn, wheat, and barley have been 800 million tonnes less in the last 20 years than historically expected.

Although the rise in crop prices due to bio-fuel and alternative bio-plastics have raised the demand of corn, palm oil, and sugar cane, global warming is lowering the productivity of crops. This might lead to even higher food prices or more land being used for agriculture.

The study is the first to estimate how global food production has already been affected by climate change. Often studies are written about the projected effects of global warming, but little has been researched about history of climate change. The study compares yield figures from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization with average temperatures and rainfall in the major growing regions. The report states that several crops responded negatively to warmer temperatures, with yields dropping by about 3-5 percent for every degree Fahrenheit. Average global temperatures increased by about 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit during the last 20 years, with even larger changes in several regions.

Christopher Field, the co-author on the study and director of Carnegie's Department of Global Ecology in Stanford remarked that "Most people tend to think of climate change as something that will impact the future," and that "this study shows that warming over the past two decades has already had real effects on global food supply."

"Though the impacts are relatively small compared to the technological yield gains over the same period, the results demonstrate that negative impacts are already occurring," said Mr David Lobell, the lead author of the study and researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The researchers focused on the six most widely grown crops in the world: maize, wheat, rice, barley, soybeans, and sorghum. These crops account for three quarters of the feed given to livestock and over half of the total food consumed by humans and almost.

The most important finding in this study, authors say, is that there is a direct correlation between temperature increases and crop yields at a global scale. Climate adaption in agriculture appears to be the key tactic to saving billions of dollars and saving lives.

More green business articles.