Climate Change Is Taking a Big Bite out of Our Food Supply

The story was originally published on Mother Jones.

Two of the world's five leading wheat exporting countries have been involved in a war with Russia, which has blockaded neighboring Ukraine. During the first few days of the invasion, global wheat prices increased. They have come down a bit since, but they are still at their highest level since the early 2010s. That milestone is not comforting. Extreme weather in Australia, the United States, and Russia caused wheat prices to spike. The result was bread riots in the Middle East that helped bring about the Arab Spring and the civil war in Syria.

According to the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the global food system is already wobbling from climate change.

The previous report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that without rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures have risen 1.1 degrees Celsius since before the 19th century industrial revolution.

The report looks at how rising temperatures are already taking a toll on global ecosystems, including the ones that provide our sustenance: farmland and the oceans. It considers how societies can adapt to make food production more resistant to climate change.

The report shows that climate change is already affecting food systems in vulnerable regions like Sub-Saharan Africa and Central America. While people living in nations near the equator will take the worst of the effects, they have contributed less greenhouse gas emissions than their peers in the global north.

California's Central Valley and the Midwestern corn belt are the two most productive farming regions in the United States.

Crop failures caused by destructive weather events are not the only damage. Increased CO 2 in the atmosphere helps crops grow faster, but it also lowers their levels of vitamins and minerals. Climate change is more likely to cause heat stress than faster growth. The authors found that the global yield of corn, wheat, and rice has fallen by 5.3 percent since 1961.