Feeding the hungry is set to become increasingly difficult in our changing world, as this news article illustrates:
“Last week, a source leaked a draft report, drawn up by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and due to be released next March. It’s the second of three reports, following the first that came out in September this year. Among other things, the text clearly outlines the threats climate change poses to the global food supply, citing a decrease of up to 2% each decade in yields of staple crops like maize, wheat, and rice.”
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“Climate will place limits on staple crops, and the variability of yields will also increase year to year, the IPCC concludes. The rising food prices that accompany this uncertainty will affect the world’s poorest the most, and countries in the tropics will bear the brunt of climate change. “The more vulnerable populations and countries will be affected more,” Meybeck says, emphasising an oft-repeated fact, “because they are already vulnerable and they also have fewer resources to deal with climate change.””
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“Poorer countries may bear the brunt, but that does not leave the rest of the globe immune, the IPCC finds. Major crops in temperate regions will be increasingly affected too. The scientists demonstrate that future food insecurity could in fact be a driver of entirely new ‘poverty pockets’ in upper-middle to high-income countries, and also in urban centres, as food availability becomes unpredictable and prices go up. And Meybeck points out that maize, wheat, and rice aren’t necessarily the only foods to worry about: they’re just the ones with the most data attached to them. Studies on other important crops could reveal similar trends. There are imports and exports to think about too, which lock the world’s countries—secure and insecure alike—into a giant food web.”
From The Guardian
These are consequential times and there is much preparation to be made. Begin the preparation here: www.greatwavesofchange.org
