Climate Change affects Farmers, Food Security

These video photoessays - one interviewing Colombian coffee growers, another Ghanaian farmers - document how a 2-degree rise in temperature has already hurt some of the world's most vulnerable people. The videos show how rising temperatures have damaged crops, led to increased pests and disease, and ultimately forced farmers to switch to less profitable crops - or even abandon their land entirely.

These are striking examples of what the future could hold: a massive human migration as breadbaskets turn into to dust bowls.

From the CGIAR Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, Food Security

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Shocked at the use of emotional, fear based propaganda on your website. I had grown to expect more from your scientific integrity. As you know, changing pest pressures are precipitated by a complex mix of factors. Changing temperatures are only one component in very complex and integrated crop/landscape systems. I guess trivializing complexity "two degrees up" for the sake of raising funds is a good strategy, seems to work in a "scientific" world that feeds on sensational "news" trends.

By Marc Pacchioli (not verified) on 04 Dec 2010 #permalink

arama motorlarında en iyi yere gelme çabamız var tabiki complexity "two degrees up" for the sake of raising funds is a good strategy, seems to work in a "scientific" world that feeds on sensational "news" trends. bakalım daha nasıl yerlere gelicez herÅeyi zaman göstericek

They would certainly not do anything themselves like altering the clocks for daylight saving as in other countries,they will just wait till the poor sods in the Mekong are under water and then wait for the money to pour in,that's assuming there is any truth in the story that we will all be swimming to the shops one day.
http://www.healthproductreviewers.com/force-factor-review.html

By janicesimons (not verified) on 05 Dec 2010 #permalink

Eger sitemize yaptıÄınız ilk ziyaretiniz ise, Lütfen öncelikle Yardım kriterlerini okuyunuz.
Forumumuzda bilgi alıÅveriÅinde bulunabilmeniz için öncelikle Kayıt olmalısınız.

Ãye olmayanlar forumumuzda hiçbir Åekilde aktivite uygulayamaz;
Konu açamaz, Mesaj yazamaz, Eklenti indiremez, Ãzel mesajlasamaz.
Forumumuzu tam anlamıyla kullanmak için üye olabilirsiniz

Firstly, regional temperature variations are dominated by many factors and causal relationships cannot be determined for these changes in climate. See this blog post for more detail about some of the causes of climate change in Africa. In short, if we don't know fully know or understand the causes of these problems, how are we supposed to fix them? If we aggressively tackle one problem at great expense, and this turns out to be the wrong one, we will cause more harm than good.

Secondly, as noted, the crude linkage between temperature, pests and disease itself raises eyebrows. There are many factors at play. We are familiar with climate scientists attempting to crudely link malaria to global warming, and we are at least seeing some sense return to that debate with Nature publishing an article recently with a more mature viewpoint. Lets hope this more responsible approach continues.

arama motorlarında en iyi yerlere gelmeyi hedefledik tabiki olursa bizim cabamiz bunun icin nasip olursa eger tabiki bilemiyoruz bakalim nasil olcak

It's true that these films are attempts to persuade rather than to educate, grossly oversimplify matters, use emotional photos and music, etc. None of that impugnes the integrity of Dr. Ronald, who is also a human being like the rest of us and is entitled to post whatever she pleases on her blog. Scientists have been neutrally presenting evidence as if it would speak for itself for years to disastrous effect. It is past time to resort to more persuasive techniques in my opinion.

Spence:

"We are familiar with climate scientists attempting to crudely link malaria to global warming..."

"We" are familiar with no such thing. I see no evidence that climatologists tried to make this link, crudely or otherwise. References please? All I can find is a lot of doctors and economist who are making the link, after accepting the basic findings of climatologists. Even the Nature article you so generously provide cites no climatologists. As far as I can tell, this is a conversation between epidemiologists and other health practitioners. They may well be right that a warming world will not necessarily show an increase in malaria. But this is an irrelevant straw man with regard to these films and, unless you can produce the references showing otherwise, an unnecessary slur on climatologists.

Jamie,

Congratulations on making a distinction without a difference. Of course the studies are multi-disciplinary, but clearly climate science is fundamental to it. The problem is on the climate science side though: climate scientists make projections of regional temperature which are worthless as climate models do not make accurate predictions on the regional scale, for the reasons linked above. The responsibility for warning about this rests with the climate science community, not the medical community.

See here. Hmm, that seems to be riddled with the output of GCMs used at a regional scale, and many of the investigations are multi-disciplinary (as you would expect) and have involved climate scientists along the way who should have been aware of the limitations and problems of doing this. Note in that chapter there are good words of caution from the medical community about the problems with disease models. Shame there are not similar caveats in that chapter about the problems with using GCMs on a regional scale.

It is unsurprising that the "discovery" that climate is rather less important after all (from the nature paper above) is found by people from the medical community using observations as evidence, instead of model output from climate scientists.

Ever heard of Goyder's Line?

In 1865 George Goyder rode a horse around the new colony of South Australia and, using his knowledge of plants as a guide, came up with a line which he drew on a map of SA [he was Surveyor-General] which separated the land suitable for European style farming from that which was not [rainfall minimal, unreliable and erratic].
Pretty close to the 10 inch isohyet.

Not a bad effort for nearly 150 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goyder%27s_Line

Well, the line is changing.
It is moving south and west into the area that was, then, considered suitable for farming.

And the farming areas on the cusp are in stress.
Their rainfall in the past 30 odd years has become less, less reliable, and more erratic.

So, farming practices are changing, there is a trend away from broadacre crop production to increased pastoralism.

One of the areas hardest hit is near where I live.
Its the Barossa Valley, one of Australia's premier wine production areas.
The vines are suffering, production is down, quality has suffered.

Meanwhile where I live has changed recently from being on the 'wet' side of Goyder's Line to being precisely on it.
My neighbour keeps fairly good rainfall observations and there are 2 official SA Bureau of Meteorology stations within a few kms.
Both have showed a trend downwards of rainfall in recent decades and my place is now almost precisely on the 250 mm annual average [which is the metric equivalent of the old 10 inch isohyet].

My climate is changing.

By hannah's dad (not verified) on 05 Dec 2010 #permalink

Meanwhile where I live has changed recently from being on the 'wet' side of Goyder's Line to being precisely on it.
My neighbour keeps fairly good rainfall observations and there are 2 official SA Bureau of Meteorology stations within a few kms. thank you

hi Pamela

the scenarios need to be created for the coming years. It is essential to be able to create solutions that will also bring money. Like creating businesses that will solve the major problems by designing products, giving jobs and saving the world.

if we don't calm the situation in Africa down...wars will come to life soon

Martyna