CLIMATE CHANGE AND FOOD PRODUCTION Glenn Stone Part 3 1

Global Warming and Agriculture 1.Will GW lead to reduced global food production? Possibly. 1.Will GW lead to less nutritious food? Almost certainly. But agricultural technology developers have been developing less nutritious foods for a long time. 2.Will GW lead to isolated food crises? 3.Will agricultural technology companies meet the challenges of GW? 2

3 GW will increasingly disrupt people’s ability to grow crops -extreme weather events cause -disclocations -flooding of fields -destruction of crops

Extreme weather events affect developed and developing nations alike 4

Technological solutions? Technologies like submergence-tolerant rice should be helpful with some levels of flooding, but not extreme weather events. Those will require political and economic solutions more than technological ones.

Will isolated food crises cause famines? Famines are rarely caused by underproduction, but by people not being able to grow crops at all or not get access to the food FAMINEDEATHS (approx) PRIMARY CAUSEKEY FACT China “Great Leap Forward” mMao disrupted most key aspects of wheat and rice production Population fed itself before and after Mao’s disruptions Soviet (esp. Ukraine “Black Famine”) mStalin forced collectivizationExported millions of tons of grain to Europe to finance 5 Year Plan Ireland “Potato Famine” mBlight on potatoes that peasants had to exclusively subsist on Grain & pork exports to England rose throughout famine 6

Even if the storm costs $14 billion…even $2 billion in payouts could be optimistic… But at least the Philippines has a fairly prosperous disporic community… 7

Sub-Saharan African countries don’t. Effects of severe drought, Ethiopia, Government bailout: bupkis. In the US, the severe drought of 1988 led to crop yields dropping by 37%. Congress awarded farmers a $3-billion bailout. 8

Global Warming and Agriculture 1.Will GW lead to reduced global food production? Possibly. 2.Will GW lead to less nutritious food? Almost certainly. 3.Will GW lead to isolated food crises? With absolute certainty. But isolated food crises will require political and economic solutions. 4.Will agricultural technology companies meet the challenges of GW? 9