The UK-US Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience reported on Friday, Aug. 14 that strong storms, droughts and extreme heat may soon cause food shortages to occur more commonly, given that the processes involved in food supply systems and global climate trends continue to change.
According to the experts, the worldwide food supply is currently under so much pressure and that weather conditions have become so rapidly-changing that they were able to estimate that a once-a-century food shortage occurrence in the past may be possible to happen once every 30 years in the future.
Agricultural industries are mostly dependent on the climate. The outcomes of the total produce per season largely rely [pdf] on the ever-changing weather. Therefore, weather conditions most likely dictate the variable availability of food sources in markets and the distribution of agriculture. In the event that the frequently-modifying climate influences the variability of agricultural productions through the years, this signifies that the costs of the goods may face instabilities within seasons and that the foundations of the food system may be induced to prolonged challenges.
The most essential crops consumed in the world such as soybean, maize, rice and wheat are supplied by few of the agriculture-producing nations. With this, the experts said that extreme weather changes in these regions have the biggest effects on the global food system. The distribution is thus concentrated on specific parts of the world, meaning some countries receive large supplies while others do not.
Trade is a beneficial aspect of the global food system as it allows countries with minimal agricultural capabilities to meet the food demands of their people. Being able to communicate to other countries for trade may decrease the possibility of nations to suffer from local production shocks; however, it may not be beneficial for those located in distant "breadbasket" regions. Relying on trade alone may also be troublesome particularly if trade restrictions rise at some point and the food system connectivity established becomes severed.
"The chance of having a weather-related food shock is increasing, and the size of that shock is also increasing," says Tim Benton, the report presenter and a professor of population ecology at Leeds University. "And as these events become more frequent, the imperative for doing something about it becomes even greater."
In the end, the experts recommend the formulation of international contingency plans, creating better models that can predict possible food shortages in the future and detection of possible setbacks in the global trade to hopefully prevent them.
Photo: B Garrett | Flickr
