NASA Says Climate Change Will Affect Crops Faster Than Expected, Farmers Urged To Adapt To Avert Massive Losses

NASA and other researchers said humanity has just a decade at most before climate change has a severe impact on crops in many portions of the world's "breadbasket regions."

Experts from the space agency, Columbia University's The Earth Institute, and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said farmers must adapt to climate change immediately to avert massive crop losses.

(Photo : Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
TELTOW, GERMANY - SEPTEMBER 13: The photographer holds an ear of corn he found on the ground next to a corn field during harvest on September 13, 2012 near Teltow, Germany. The annual corn harvest is underway in the German state of Brandenburg, where corn is widely planted and used for animal feed as well as the produciton of biofuels. Analysts recently predicted that German corn farmers are likely to benefit from global warming, as higher temperatures will mean an earlier planting season.

Climate Change to Greatly Affect Farmers in Poor Nations

Sadly, poorer nations and areas will bear the brunt of climate change since many are expected to see large agricultural disruptions in the future decades. These same locales typically lack the financial capacity to purchase food on the global market. While some nations may become wealthier due to climate change, experts said others might face food security issues.

According to Potsdam Institute researcher and study co-author Christoph Muller, one consequence the statistics clearly demonstrate is that poorer nations are expected to see the steepest decreases in yields of their key staple crops. Muller said in a Eurekalert report that the situation worsens disparities in food security and wealth that already exist.

Climate Change to Affect Crops Too

Experts told ANI that certain crops might be more vulnerable to climate change soon than others. Their crop models and climate forecasts show that wheat crop yields in China, the United States, and Canada might increase. But corn crop yields in North and Central America, Central and East Asia, and West Africa may decline by more than 20 percent.

It's worth noting that the estimates revealed that increased wheat crop yields in northern climes might not be enough to compensate for corn crop losses in southern areas. Food insecurity may be exacerbated in some regions, particularly in poorer nations, as a result of large fluctuations in crop productivity.

Changes in rain patterns, increasing drought frequency and severity, and rising heatwaves are all potential variables that might affect agricultural production. All of these climatic conditions endanger crop health and may cause significant losses in critical agricultural regions throughout the world.

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Other Projections

Haaretz said experts used crop models and climate forecasts in a new study to assess the global impact of climate change in the future years. This study, researchers said, contains the most comprehensive collection of crop production estimates to date. According to researchers, the data gives light on how climate change would affect agriculture and the possibility of food scarcity soon.

According to the researchers, even if ideal improvements are implemented to help prevent global temperature increases, farmers throughout the globe would still be "facing a new climatic reality," one in which some nations will get wealthier while others will become poorer and confront food insecurity.

Temperature rises aren't the only factor driving this future shift; the paper notes that rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, for example, may boost wheat and other crop growth while lowering the nutritional content of the crops.

Researchers published their study, titled "Climate Impacts on Global Agriculture Emerge Earlier in New Generation of Climate and Crop Models," in journal Nature Food.