Projection: 1C Warming = 42 Million Ton Loss In Global Wheat Output; 1/4 Of Total Wheat Trade

LONDON ? Climate change threatens dramatic price fluctuations in the price of wheat and potential civil unrest because yields of one of the world’s most important staple foods are badly affected by temperature rise. An international consortium of scientists have been testing wheat crops in laboratory and field trials in many areas of the world in changing climate conditions and discovered that yields drop on average by six percent for every one degree Celsius rise in temperature.

This represents 42 million tonnes of wheat lost ? about a quarter of the current global wheat trade ? for every degree. This would create serious shortages and cause price hikes of the kind that have previously caused food riots in developing countries after only one bad harvest. Global production of wheat was 701 million tonnes in 2012, but most of this is consumed locally. Global trade is much smaller, at 147 tonnes in 2013.

If the predicted reduction of 42 million tonnes per 1 ˚C of temperature increase occurred, market shortages would cause price rises. Many developing countries, and the hungry poor within them, would not be able to afford wheat or bread. Since temperatures ? on current projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ? are expected to rise up to 5 ˚C this century in many wheat-growing regions, this could be catastrophic for global food supply.

Dr. Reimund Rötter, professor of production ecology and agrosystems modelling at the Natural Resources Institute Finland, said that wheat yield declines were larger than previously thought.


EDIT

http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2015/01/worldwide-field-trials-show-that-just.html