27/5/2005
Climate Change Will Threaten Crops, UN Agency Says

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said this week that climate change threatens to increase crop losses, increase the number of people facing malnutrition, and may change the development patterns of animal diseases and plant pests. In a new report produced in collaboration with the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the agency says that in some 40 poor, developing countries, with a combined population of 2 billion, including 450 million undernourished people, production losses due to climate change may drastically increase the number of undernourished people, severely hindering progress in combating poverty and food insecurity.

Sixty-five developing countries, home to more than half the developing world's total population in 1995, risk losing about 280 million tons of potential cereal production, valued at $56 billion, as a result of climate change. This loss would be equivalent to 16 per cent of the agricultural
gross domestic product (GDP) of these countries in 1995 dollars, the report adds.

Among these countries, India could lose 125 million tons, or 18 per cent, of its rain fed cereal production, while China’s cereal production of 350 million tons is expected to rise by 15 per cent.

In Africa, 1.1 billion hectares of land have a growing period of less than 120 days, it says. By 2080 climate change could result in an expansion of this area by 5 to 8 per cent, or by about 50 to 90 million hectares.

Because of modern trade patterns and human travel in a globalising world, agriculture will have to adapt to an accelerating stream of new pests and diseases caused by changing ecological conditions resulting from climate change, it says.

"Climate change not only has an impact on food security, but is also likely to influence the development and intensification of animal diseases and plant pests," said Wulf Killmann, who chairs FAO's Interdepartmental Working Group on Climate Change.

The report warns that temperature changes, as well as increased air pollution, can intensify human disease patterns, as does the spread of trans-boundary animal diseases caused by pathogens that are potentially dangerous to humans. “Avian flu is the most recent example,” it says.