World Grain - October 2022 - 52

FEATURE: CLIMATE CHANGE WEIGHING ON AGRICULTURE
and today just 12 crops and five animal species provide
75% of the food we produce. This loss of agricultural
diversity has contributed to climate change, ecosystem
destruction and hunger.
Uren sees the global agricultural value chain " already
struggling under disrupted logistics, and the effects of
COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine have revealed how
complex systems we have taken for granted can break
down under pressure. Current trends show even greater
changes on the horizon that will increasingly strain the
context in which these value chains work. Unless we
re-think and re-design them, they are likely to buckle
and may break. "
However, there is not enough understanding about
how to make change happen. And where there is activity,
it is often incremental with a narrow focus (e.g.
living wage or logistics). As the Forum puts it: " We
need to take a more systemic, longer-term view. "
Uren's judgment is that " more change - and challenge
- is coming. Changing weather will increasingly impact
agricultural production, at the same time as the imperative
for climate mitigation necessitates changing land use. "
Three takeaways regarding climate change, agriculture
The Forum for the Future offers
three key messages regarding
climate change's agricultural
impact:
1. Climate change will increasingly
negatively impact
agricultural production of all
agricultural crops, and there is
growing evidence that breadbaskets
are going to fail.
Climate change often is
called a threat multiplier, impacting
on existing problems.
As droughts, storms and floods
increase, their interconnected
impacts can be felt through
global economic and trading
systems. For example, the
prices of the four main traded
food crops in the world (wheat,
maize, rice and soybeans), produced
in breadbaskets such
as Australia, Brazil, the United
States and Europe, are vulnerable
to simultaneous failures.
When this has happened in
the past, there is evidence that
this has contributed to food
price riots and, arguably, conflicts.
For examples, droughts
and heatwaves in the Ukraine
and Russia in 2007 and in 2009
damaged wheat crops and
caused global wheat prices to
rise considerably. With climate
change, there is a likelihood of
52
increased water stress across
these breadbaskets, which will
put increased pressure on the
food system and prices.
2. There is a vicious circle of
climate change and land use
- as climate change impacts
production, we will need more
land to produce food.
More than two-thirds of
global wheat is used for food,
20% is used for livestock feed
and another 3% to 5% each
for seed, industrial use and
other uses. Feeding the growing
world population at a time
when climate change will be
disrupting where, how and if
crops can be grown will put
increasing pressures on land
use. There will be increasing
stress between land use for
food, fiber and fuel. A key
challenge is if a company is
planning to grow year-on-year,
where is that (land) resource
going to come from? One part
of the answer is diversification,
with more crop variety reducing
breadbasket failure risks.
3. Climate change and disruption
is already affecting
harvests, and more severe
disruption will follow.
This year, apart from the war
in Ukraine, the weather has
had an impact in several major
wheat-exporting countries.
" Drought, floods and heatwaves
threaten crops in some
other major producers (US,
Canada and France), " said Kelly
Goughary (Gro Intelligence).
Global wheat production
for the 2022-23 period will
be the lowest for four years,
and global stocks of wheat are
predicted to be at their lowest
for six years, according to
a US government report. Gro
Intelligence points out that
global fertilizer prices have
tripled over the past year, risking
" significant "
reductions
in crop yields this year. It estimates
that this - together
with other factors - means
global wheat stocks are down
to their lowest level since the
2008 financial crisis.
Climate change increases
the likelihood of global conflicts,
as regions compete for
increasingly scarce resources.
The Forum puts it this way:
" We need to re-think what
global value chains may look
like in light of these trends
and innovate more resilient
and future fit models that can
meet and serve the needs of
the future. "
October 2022 / World Grain / World-Grain.com
http://www.World-Grain.com
World Grain - October 2022

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