Guardian:
Agricultural practices evolved over a period of about
11 000 years of stable climate, but now they will need to
adapt to a changing climate and an increase in global
population, writes Damian Carrington for the
Guardian. In a
recent
study, David Lobell, Wolfram Schlenker, and Justin
Costa-Roberts found that global productivity of crop plants has
dropped, increasing food prices by 18.9% over recent decades.
The drop in productivity was not due to changes in rainfall;
rather, higher global temperatures caused dehydration,
prevented pollination, and slowed photosynthesis. The
researchers used computer models to separate the effects of
climate change from natural variations in weather and other
factors. Between 1980 and 2008, wheat production was 5.5% lower
than it would have been without global warming, and corn
production was 3.8% lower. Some countries' production dropped
far more; Russia lost 15% of its potential wheat crop, and
Brazil, Mexico, and Italy all suffered above-average
losses.
