LONDON: Extreme weather such as intense storms, droughts and heat waves will cause more frequent and severe food shortages as the global climate and food supply systems change, British and American experts warned yesterday.
The pressure on the world’s food supplies is so great and the increase in extreme weather events so rapid that food shortages on a scale likely to occur once a century under past conditions may in future hit as often as every 30 years, they said.
“The chance of having a weather-related food shock is increasing, and the size of that shock is also increasing,” said Tim Benton, a professor of population ecology at Leeds University who presented a report commissioned by the British government. “And as these events become more frequent, the imperative for doing something about it becomes greater.”
The report, prepared by UK-US Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience, also warned that knee-jerk national responses to production drops, such as the imposition of export or import bans on certain foods or crops, risk exacerbating a problem and fuelling spikes in food prices.
“If you put the worst case institutional responses together with a worst case production shock, that’s when it starts spiralling out of control,” said Rob Bailey, research director for energy, environment and resources at Britain’s Chatham House think tank — Royal Institute of International Affairs.
The experts looked at production of the world’s most important commodity crops — maize, soybean, wheat and rice — and how droughts, floods and storms might impact it in future. Since most global production of these crops comes from a small number of countries such as China, the US and India, extreme weather events in these regions will have the largest impact on global food supplies, they said.
While greater interconnectedness reduces countries’ vulnerability to local production shocks, it may perversely increase vulnerability to large shocks in distant so-called “breadbasket” regions.
REUTERS
LONDON: Extreme weather such as intense storms, droughts and heat waves will cause more frequent and severe food shortages as the global climate and food supply systems change, British and American experts warned yesterday.
The pressure on the world’s food supplies is so great and the increase in extreme weather events so rapid that food shortages on a scale likely to occur once a century under past conditions may in future hit as often as every 30 years, they said.
“The chance of having a weather-related food shock is increasing, and the size of that shock is also increasing,” said Tim Benton, a professor of population ecology at Leeds University who presented a report commissioned by the British government. “And as these events become more frequent, the imperative for doing something about it becomes greater.”
The report, prepared by UK-US Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience, also warned that knee-jerk national responses to production drops, such as the imposition of export or import bans on certain foods or crops, risk exacerbating a problem and fuelling spikes in food prices.
“If you put the worst case institutional responses together with a worst case production shock, that’s when it starts spiralling out of control,” said Rob Bailey, research director for energy, environment and resources at Britain’s Chatham House think tank — Royal Institute of International Affairs.
The experts looked at production of the world’s most important commodity crops — maize, soybean, wheat and rice — and how droughts, floods and storms might impact it in future. Since most global production of these crops comes from a small number of countries such as China, the US and India, extreme weather events in these regions will have the largest impact on global food supplies, they said.
While greater interconnectedness reduces countries’ vulnerability to local production shocks, it may perversely increase vulnerability to large shocks in distant so-called “breadbasket” regions.
REUTERS
