Global warming could force a 130 per cent increase in staple food prices

The price of staple foods could rise by as much as 130 per cent due to climate change, warns a new study.

The report, Food Security, Farming, and Climate Change to 2050 by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) indicates that climate change could lead to food shortages and price rises in staple foods over the next 40 years. Extreme weather conditions such as droughts and floods are listed as prime causes.

The IFPRI study addresses the challenge of reaching sustainable food security through to 2050. Scientists fed 15 scenarios of population and income growth into various climate modelling programmes to ascertain the effects of crop production.

One of the scenarios suggests that warming of just 1C by 2050 could affect food production and crop yields. In the worst case scenario the study forecast the price of maize may increase by 130 per cent, fuelled by a population of nine billion and rising temperatures leading to reduced yields.

The report says progress will be made more difficult by the looming challenges of a growing world population and increasingly negative productivity effects from climate change. The report also states that additional investments in agricultural productivity would help mitigate climate change.

In a conference call to reporters yesterday, Gerald Nelson, a senior research fellow at the IFPRI and a coauthor of the report said: "The food price spikes of 2008 and 2010 both had important weather components."

The study declares that the production of wheat and rice would fall across the world, although Nelson said sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia were the places most likely to suffer. Climate change would also see harvests in developed nations affected, according to Nelson. "The Corn Belt in the United States has (to bear) serious production losses," he said.

The report admits that its modelling outcomes are only as reliable as their underlying data and that freely available satellite observations would make it possible to track changes in agricultural practices and land use more effectively.

The report concludes that the negative effects of climate change on food security can be counteracted by broad-based economic growth-particularly improved agricultural productivity-and "robust international trade in agricultural products to offset regional shortages."

The main recommendations of the study implore policymakers increase public investment in land, water, and nutrient use.

The study was issued at the 16th Conference of Parties (COP16) in Cancun as delegates from 194 nations meet to discuss climate change and called for GHG emissions caused by agriculture to be reduced and for a carbon-negative agriculture target by 2050. The report on the future of food security is likely to be of use to policymakers and others concerned with the impact of climate change on international development.

Author: Leroy Robinson | Climate Action

Image: Yogendra174 | Flickr