Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat

Greenhoused: Climate Change Changes Agriculture

By Kisha Lewellyn Schlegel, 4-10-07

	From the IPCC

“…For months
Grandmother’s dying has now dragged on,
more and more water rising into her body,
while in the village shop a poster
outlaws the yellowing
terror of Colorado beetles.”
-W.G. Sebald

This week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (opens PDF) released the Fourth Assessment of Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.  While the report made the news just before an Easter Weekend of unprecedented freeze warnings from Georgia to New Jersey, little of the coverage was devoted to the report’s findings about agriculture. In a global food system, climate change (which, according to the report, is now officially due to humans) will have deleterious affects in most of the world, with only a handful of places “benefiting,” from the changes in weather.

At this point, much of the literature about global warming and farming focuses on how farming leads to global warming. Very little deals with the effects climate change will have on farming and ranching…and the way every single one of us gets nourishment. Subsequently some farmers remain skeptical that global warming is real, or worry about adding another environmental concern for society to connect with their work.

The IPCC report is one of the first documents to provide clear evidence of the effects climate change will have on farmers and ranchers around the world. The report was drafted by over 600 authors from 40 countries, and then reviewed by 620 experts and government participants only to then go through a line-by-line revision by another 113 government representatives. In other words, the final draft is final. It is accurate. And climate change caused by humans is officially real and happening. And according to all of these writers and reviewers, changing temperatures, ocean currents and ecosystems will affect agriculture on each continent in different ways.

Africa
Production is expected to be “severely compromised” as the amount of land, the growing season and yield in semi-arid and arid regions will decrease as malnutrition increases across the continent.  In some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could fall by 50 percent by 2020.

Asia
In Eastern and Southeastern Asia, crop yields could actually increase up to 20 percent. But Central and South Asia will probably see a 30 percent decrease in yields by the mid-21st century. Regardless, climate change will compound pressure on natural resources and the risk of hunger will remain high.

Australia
While the continent will loose much of its distinct biodiversity, coastline and reefs, drought and fire will ruin much of the agriculture and forestry production in southern and eastern Australia and eastern New Zealand. But inhabitants along the major rivers in western and southern New Zealand may benefit from increase rainfall, less frost and a longer growing season.

Europe
Southern Europe will experience higher temperatures, drought and the resulting loss of crops and central and eastern Europe will probably have less rain and less forest productivity. Northern Europe may see an increase in some crop yields, but winter floods and increasing ground instability will likely negate most benefits.

Latin America
Agricultural land in dry areas will be contaminated with salts and become a desert. While important crops and livestock die, the soybeans will flourish. Fish will move to cooler waters as the sea surface temperature rises. 

North America
Rain-fed agriculture will increase by 5 to 20 percent. But in the west, mountain snow pack will melt sooner, causing winter floods and reducing summer flows, compounding the ever-present need for over-allocated water. Fire and pests will abound.

In response to all of this climate-induced agricultural chaos, the report suggests the development of a “portfolio” of adaptation to climate changes and simultaneous mitigation. In other words, use technology to deal with the consequences, and meanwhile, stop creating the consequences. The report points to intermediate solutions of water resource management and of shoring up seawalls to save some of the residents who will drown under the rising tide. It also calls for sustainable development defined as that which “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

For some, these calls are not enough to stop the clearly outlined, ensuing disaster.  For some, we are in need of revolutionary action.

This Saturday, April 14th, a clear response to global warming will happen with Bill McKibben’s Step It Up events. People around the country plan to gather at one of 1307 “meaningful, iconic places to call for action on climate change.” The group will “hike, bike, climb, walk, swim, kayak, canoe, or simply sit or stand with banners of our call to action: Step It Up Congress! Cut Carbon 80% by 2050.”

As McKibben writes, “The best science tells us we have ten years to fundamentally transform our economy and lead the world in the same direction or else...”

When Sebald wrote of water rising in his Grandmother and the infestation of beetles in his book, After Nature, he was not specifically speaking to the loss we face.  He was speaking of the absence and the grief that came with a post war Germany where street blocks were defined by the level of their destruction.  Now that the IPCC has finally affirmed a clear view of similar destruction, continent by continent, Sebald’s images seem distinctly relevent: here the water will rise, there the beetles will infest. Now we are only left to imagine the intensity of the heat, the dead corn in the field, the changes we must make.

Look for the Spade & Spoon column every Tuesday at www.newwest.net/spadeandspoon. If you have article ideas for Spade & Spoon, email kisha@newwest.net.

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