A team of researchers from the University of Leeds say that crop yields in the coming years may decrease even further due to increasing global temperatures.
As many countries already suffer from a lack of food, scientists say the problem may get even worse due to the worsening effects of global warming and climate change. Aside from frequent storms, droughts and other environmental factors that have caused a lot of problems for farmers and crop growers, any further rise in global temperatures may exacerbate the problem even more.
The new study shows that even 2°C increase in global warming could have disastrous results for agriculture all over the planet. If the current trend continues, farmers may start noticing marked decreases in their crop yields by the year 2030.
"Our research shows that crop yields will be negatively affected by climate change much earlier than expected," said Andy Challinor, a professor from the University of Leeds' School of Earth and Environment. "Furthermore, the impact of climate change on crops will vary both from year-to-year and from place-to-place with the variability becoming greater as the weather becomes increasingly erratic."
The new study was put together by a University of Leeds team led by Challinor. The team published their findings in the online journal Nature Climate Change.
"As more data have become available, we've seen a shift in consensus, telling us that the impacts of climate change in temperate regions will happen sooner rather than later," Challinor added.
The team analyzed data from around 1,700 assessments regarding the effect of climate change on the growing of major food crops such as wheat, maize and rice. In recent years, there has been a marked increase in the public's interest regarding climate change and global warming. This has sparked numerous research and studies regarding the effect of these changes on agriculture. The University of Leeds team was able to gather data from a very large number of studies for their report. Compared to a similar report that was published in 2007, the research team had access to over two times the number of available studies used in the previous report.
After going through the data, Challinor and his colleagues were able to determine that a decrease in crop yields, especially in temperate regions, would happen sooner than previously thought. The researchers said that the negative effects would be felt by the year 2030 and could peak after year 2050. Challinor further expounds that by the latter half of the century, crop yields could go down by more than 25 percent.
"Climate change means a less predictable harvest, with different countries winning and losing in different years. The overall picture remains negative, and we are now starting to see how research can support adaptation by avoiding the worse impacts," Challinor added.
