Wednesday, March 23, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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It’s been well reported that Russia’s unjust attack on Ukraine created a surge in global wheat prices, as the crisis involved two countries that are among the world’s top five producers of the crop.
But well before the invasion occurred, the global supply of wheat and other food crops was already under longstanding assault by a deadly force — climate change. According to the latest report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global warming has reduced yields of wheat, corn and rice — the three biggest staple crops in the world — by 5.3% since 1961. And for each degree of temperature increase, the IPCC estimated that the crops’ yields would fall an additional 10-25%.
The problem encompasses both land and sea, too. The researchers reported that the amount of fish that can be sustainably harvested from the oceans dipped 4.1% from 1930 to 2010, while the human population more than tripled over that time period. Fisheries have collapsed.
If this isn’t a clarion call to address climate change, it’s hard to imagine what is. The world’s food supply is at serious risk if global warming isn’t addressed, and everyone will pay: The fortunate will incur higher prices, while the unfortunate will face famine and starvation. Inevitably, food insecurity leads to large-scale societal violence, wars and significant migration of populations, which exacerbate the problems.
The ramifications of climate change are already playing out in various agricultural regions, including parts of the United States. Alternating droughts and flooding in the Midwest Corn Belt have played havoc with grain yields in recent years, while severe drought has hurt production in California’s Central Valley.
Already, the effects of climate change on agriculture have caused mass migrations and widespread food insecurity in vulnerable regions.
Against this backdrop, conflicts like the one in Ukraine only add to the volatility. With the global supply chain already weakened by the pandemic, the ripple effects of disruptions in ag production anywhere in the world can have a severe impact elsewhere. In the case of Ukraine, the price of May wheat on the Chicago Board of Trade skyrocketed 54% in the days after Russia launched its attack, rising to $13.63 on March 8 from $8.84 on Feb. 23.
Meanwhile, the cost of fertilizer is sharply increasing too. Trade sanctions on Russia, a major producer of fertilizer, are reducing the supply on the global market. The price increases could prompt American ag producers to grow fewer crops, which would affect the global food supply as well.
Without addressing climate change, disruptions like this stand to only become more severe.
“Our report demonstrates that climate change — including increases in hazards such as flooding, drought or cyclones — is already affecting food systems, and particularly in vulnerable regions” like Sub-Saharan Africa and Central America, the report’s lead author, Cornell University professor Rachel Bezner Kerr, told Mother Jones. Bezner Kerr added that while people living near the equator would feel the most severe effects, “no one is spared from climate change impacts.”
To provide enough sustenance for a growing global population, it’s critical to reduce the greenhouse gases that are fueling global warming and, in the process, reducing agricultural yields.
This isn’t a problem we can produce our way out of. Many areas don’t have enough water to support more crops, and creating more acreage for farmland can cause crippling environmental damage that makes matters worse — look at how clear-cutting for agriculture is harming the Amazon Forest.
And while some Americans might suggest simply reducing our crop exports and keeping more food for ourselves, the global commodities trade isn’t built for that. Case in point: When American farmers tried to sell crops in the early days of the Ukraine invasion to take advantage of the spike in prices, many found they couldn’t find any takers. As reported by Reuters, the sharp price increases scared operators of grain elevators, flour mills, farm cooperatives and other potential buyers out of purchasing wheat and corn. They were afraid they wouldn’t be able to resell the crops at a profit.
The real solution involves not just reducing fossil fuel emissions, but making our food production and distribution systems more environmentally sustainable and more resilient to the effects of climate change. The IPCC researchers suggest replacing industrial-scale farming of feed crops or livestock — corporate cattle operations, massive soybean and corn farms, etc. — with a more diverse approach that involves growing multiple crops in rotations or adopting larger-scale versions of old family farms that combined an array of crops with various types of livestock.
The report’s upshot is that the food supply issue must be addressed on both of these fronts, and that serious changes must start right now. Unlike some effects of climate change — coastal flooding brought on by sea level rise, regional droughts, scattered severe storms and such — this one threatens to affect us all.
