Rapid Global Heating Is Hurting Farm Productivity, Study Finds 68
Rising temperatures over the past several decades have hurt farming productivity of crops and livestock, according to new research published in Nature Climate Change. The Guardian reports: Productivity has actually slumped by 21% since 1961, compared to if the world hadn't been subjected to human-induced heating. With the global population set to rise to more than 9 billion by 2050, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization has estimated that food production will have to increase by about 70%, with annual crop production increasing by almost one 1 billion tonnes and meat production soaring by more than 200 million tons a year by this point.
The research measured productivity by inputs -- such as labor, fertilizer and equipment -- and the output in food they produce, using a model to determine how climate change has influenced this relationship. While farming has generally become far more efficient in recent decades, it is increasingly menaced by heatwaves that exhaust farm workers and wither certain crops. Extreme weather events and drought can also affect the output of a farm, particularly smaller operations in poorer countries.
The research measured productivity by inputs -- such as labor, fertilizer and equipment -- and the output in food they produce, using a model to determine how climate change has influenced this relationship. While farming has generally become far more efficient in recent decades, it is increasingly menaced by heatwaves that exhaust farm workers and wither certain crops. Extreme weather events and drought can also affect the output of a farm, particularly smaller operations in poorer countries.
They must have tortured the data hard... (Score:2, Informative)
...to get that result.
Since 1960 according to the FAO Oil palm production has increased to3.8 times, rapeseed is up by 3.5, wheat just over 3, maize 2.8, rice and soybeans about 2.4,barley about 2, and sugarcane cassava and sorghum about 1.2-1.3
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But without the carbon emissions there would be no tractors, fertilizers and logistics to farm with... did they account for this?
Psst "carbon offsets"
JIC you don't understand what that means, we can have the tractors, fertilizers, and "logistics" without the net carbon emissions.
Your logic isn't.
mod this down too, loser (Score:1)
I can get more karma faster than you can get more modpoints.
If you spend your modpoints on my comments then you won't hurt someone else who doesn't get as many upvotes as I do.
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republican slashdot? what in the hell are you smoking.
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So if science is imperfect and new discoveries change old ideas, let's throw out all science in the decision making process... Meanwhile, I could have sworn there was a baby in this empty bathtub.
Re: They must have tortured the data hard... (Score:1)
Please explain how in the 60s, 90s or even today youâ(TM)d have fully electric farm equipment?
Or do you mean offsetting carbon by selling your carbon emissions to other countries so they canâ(TM)t effectively farm and grow their industries while you continue to emit whatever you want. Because that is logical and everyone wonâ(TM)t just randomly rip up the agreement (#sarcasm).
Even John Kerry, the guy that wrote the Paris Climate Accords, this week said the Paris Climate Accords, which would h
Re:They must have tortured the data hard... (Score:4, Insightful)
But without the carbon emissions there would be no tractors, fertilizers and logistics to farm with.
That's like saying that without slavery, there would be no United States. Is this really the line of thinking you want to go along?
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Takes bad things to produce solar panels (Score:2)
We should stop immediately according to your twisted logic.
But you got your dig into the US and that will get you an insightful every day of the week on this site. At least we stopped practicing slavery. It still exists in lots of places around the world and in others they have systems in place to keep the peasants down forever (vive la revolucion!).
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We should stop immediately according to your twisted logic.
We should have stopped yesterday, as per current science.
At least we stopped practicing slavery. It still exists in lots of places around the world
When? The US abolished slavery surprisingly late in the developed world. And "other places have it worse" seems like a low bar for the self-proclaimed "leader of the free world", don't you think?
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Sure, looking at productivity without oil doesn't give the full picture, but neither does looking at productivity without climate change effects. Either way you're throwing out a piece of the big picture.
Science likes to try to tease out individual factors. It's built right into the mathematical tools you use to analyze data, like ANOVA. Looking at an individual factor's influence on the whole doesn't mean that science reduces the entire effect to that one; it just comes out that way in press reports bec
Production, productivity [Re:They must have to...] (Score:5, Insightful)
...to get that result. Since 1960 according to the FAO Oil palm production has increased to3.8 times, rapeseed is up by 3.5, wheat just over 3, maize 2.8, rice and soybeans about 2.4,barley about 2, and sugarcane cassava and sorghum about 1.2-1.3
The article was about productivity. Your reply is about production. Productivity is production divided by resources used.
Your reply does not address the question. It's the same as if I said "I get better gas mileage than you" and your reply was "Nonsense, I drive a hundred thousand miles a year, and you only drive fifty thousand! I have twice the miles you do."
Agriculture productivity has increased by 100s of percent over the last 50 years
Citation needed.
(it depends on what produce and how productivity is defined).
Exactly, it depends on what metric for productivity you use. Productivity is often measured as area productivity; amount of crop per unit area. This study, though, apparently used resource productivity: amount of crop per "inputs -- such as labor, fertilizer and equipment."
These guys have looked into their crystal ball and determined that it would've been 21% less without carbon emissions. But without the carbon emissions there would be no tractors, fertilizers and logistics to farm with... did they account for this?
That's not what they analyzed. They analyzed the effect of climate, not the effect of tractors.
This is nothing more than pseudo-scientific nonsense. You'd have to believe in magic to think it'd even be possible to make this determination.
Meh. Not clear. This is something that's worth studying. Would be useful if we get some more work on this subject; the first rule of science is to never believe any one paper, but it's a start.
What I'd like to know is, are they looking at the same geographical locations? Logically, if climate changes, production will fall in some places and rise in other places; and also farmers will shift from one crop to another (since different places become more optimal for given crops). If they are looking at, for example, productivity of growing wheat in a location where the climate is shifting to make it more optimal to grow corn, the wheat productivity may have dropped, but farmers aren't growing wheat anymore, so it's irrelevant.
Re:Production, productivity [Re:They must have to. (Score:4, Informative)
>Agriculture productivity has increased by 100s of percent over the last 50 years
https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ex... [purdue.edu]
Despite the title "Corny News Network", this is Purdue University in Indiana which is highly respected and has focused programs on agriculture.
https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ex... [purdue.edu]
Nice data [Re:Production, productivity] (Score:2)
>Agriculture productivity has increased by 100s of percent over the last 50 years
https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ex... [purdue.edu]
Cool data, thanks. So it really is orders of magnitude.
I will note that this is yield per acre, while the study references is yield per input resources.
Re:Nice data [Re:Production, productivity] (Score:4, Interesting)
The improvements between 1930s and 1960s were primarily driven by improvements in equipment (tractors), crop selection, irrigation improvements, and pesticides.
The improvements since the 1970s and onward have been driven by companies like Monsanto, which introduced genetically modified seed to reduce the need for pesticides, increase yields, lowered water needs, and more. Monsanto is typically treated like a villain by many, but some could very reasonably argue they have literally saved the world from starvations and wars over scarce food resources.
Corn graph [Re:Nice data] (Score:2)
The improvements since the 1970s and onward have been driven by companies like Monsanto, which introduced genetically modified seed to reduce the need for pesticides, increase yields, lowered water needs, and more.
No, not in the graph of corn production [purdue.edu] you linked. The first Monsanto genetically modified corn was glyphosate-resistant maize, introduced in 1996, but it didn't reach 25% of the planted acreage until 2005. [usda.gov]. Your graph doesn't show any change in slope around 2005, so the improvements in yield are clearly to be due to factors other than genetic mods.
Monsanto is typically treated like a villain by many, but some could very reasonably argue they have literally saved the world from starvations and wars over scarce food resources.
In the future, maybe, but it doesn't account for the specific graph you showed.
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You have half the picture. It was basic scientists, most importantly Norman Burlaug, "Father of the Green Revolution", that developed the high-yield, disease-resistant varieties of wheat that more than doubled and tripled agricultural production in Mexico, Pakistan, and India, allowing Mexico to become a net wheat exporter in 1963 and allowing Pakistan and India to avoid starvation. He literally saved billions of people from death via starvation and resource wars.
The reason Monsanto is hated is because the
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Not necessarily (Score:5, Interesting)
The figures are relative to where they would be otherwise, not absolute.
So as long as the data shows the increase was due to methodology and improvements in pesticides/herbicides, the increase is unimportant. That's a big if, but they can't demonstrate the claim without it.
Total increase due to change in methods plus change in temperature/rainfall.
Not everywhere will get the new agritech. That gives you the change in yield due to temperature and rainfall alone.
It's then a matter of calculating global change that would have occurred from tech alone, had temperature and rainfall patterns remained in dynamic equilibrium.
The difference between actual and projected is the difference due yo global warming.
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Do they really think that each and every person on the planet is going to be eating 1/3 more food?
Re:They must have tortured the data hard... (Score:4, Insightful)
FAO [Re:They must have tortured the data hard...] (Score:2)
Myself, I was amused by the " estimated that food production will have to increase by about 70%" for the 20% increase in population they're projecting.
The population increase to 2050 was estimated at 35%, not 20%, in that, but your point is valid.
That estimate was by the Food and Agricultural Organization ("FAO"), though: it wasn't done in the study being discussed.
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Assumptions optimism (Score:2)
Did they include independent water table lowering? (Score:5, Interesting)
Increased evaporation and pumped irrigation will make it even worse, but even without climate change population growth would have caused unsustainable draw down of water tables (such as in Syria, where weather was relatively static but pressure from population growth was ravaging agriculture).
Did they try to estimate the effect of the impact of unsustainable water use independent of climate change?
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Texas and Louisiana are sucking their aquifers dry. This is a problem for Louisiana because that invites salt water in to replace it. In Texas they have dreams of expanding industry which won't happen without water.
heatwaves that exhaust farm workers (Score:2, Informative)
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Loss of arable land is the number one historical destroyer of civilizations.
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I'll buy that, but global warming is increasing the total amount of arable land.
Not clear. It's a very hard thing to calculate. Probably the best summary of the work so far would be in AR5 Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5... [www.ipcc.ch] but that's seven years old, and the modelling is improving rapidly
The relevant section would be 7.3.2., "Sensitivity of Food Production to Weather and Climate": https://www.ipcc.ch/site/asset... [www.ipcc.ch]
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is it actually arable land though? Most of that increase in extremely high latitudes with questionable soil and short growing seasons. Also there is a huge amount of infrastructure centered around current ag regions to get stuff to market; not so much in northern Canada and Siberia.
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Nevermind having to worry about thawing methane exploding any time you make a spark in the wrong place.
Re:heatwaves that exhaust farm workers (Score:4, Insightful)
...and wither certain crops. Seriously? In the real world we just have to recognize the new climate zones and plant accordingly.
As I have pointed out to deniers over the years, in the USA, yes the growing zones will shift.
But they might just shift right out of your country. already places like Canada are seeing changes in the FFS (frost-free season) http://lamps.math.yorku.ca/Wor... [yorku.ca]
FFS is a big determinant of what will grow where. It's also a more relatable way of visualizing The effects of the energy retention characteristics of an atmosphere based on composition
But all that aside, no one seems to have addressed the other issue:
"With the global population set to rise to more than 9 billion by 2050, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization has estimated that food production will have to increase by about 70%, with annual crop production increasing by almost one 1 billion tonnes and meat production soaring by more than 200 million tons a year by this point."
If we give any credence to these figures, we start to understand just why the UN and some others have been trying to get us to eat insects and worms. Let's try out some termite recipes, eh?
Just because Malthus was wrong about the timelines does not mean that the earth has infinite capacity to carry humans. And the scary part is that as out technology pushes harder and harder against those limits, is when we do find where our technology fails, the end won't be pretty. Won't smell very good either.
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The invisible hand will turn Russia into a bread basket along with Canada when food prices rise. Aside from that there's plenty of land for agriculture, especially with irrigation, desalination, and artificial fertilizer. No bug eating necessary.
But the deniers miss the part where they will no longer be the breadbasket country. The deniers are playing a very short game.
And creating food for 9 billion people - well now - it's just possible there might be some limits here? I know the anti-Malthus people believe there are no limits - I've spoken with some who involke some wierd humans turing into ectoplasm like entities not constrained by matter, which is more to my main point, that no one is discussing just how we'll feed an ever increasing number
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Current world population is around 7.8 billion. Why would we need 70% more food if/when it peaks out at around 9 billion?
A billion here, a billion there -= after a while it adds up.
I suspect they are referring to a good diet for everyone. Which surely doesn't exist for a lot of people today https://www.nytimes.com/intera... [nytimes.com]
And make no mistake - if we restrict people to 1500 calories a day - just about starvation level if continued for life, Why, We can probably get by with just a bit more than today.
Make no mistake as well - knowing what I know about humanity, we shall continue until we find out. We're gonna push the
Not even wrong (Score:1)
"Rising temperatures over the past several decades have hurt farming productivity of crops and livestock..."
It would be hard to find a statement less capable of being proved by evidence.
As far as I know rising temperatures and CO2 levels (within reason) improve the growth of all plants.
Of course, since 1961 farming has been turned into a cynical, calculating industry with no concern for human or anaimal health. That might have something to do with such findings. If you abuse nature long enough and hard enou
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> It would be hard to find a statement less capable of being proved by evidence.
Evidence doesn't matter - supplicate to the global power elite or be subject to literal Hell on Earth [archive.org].
Can we just take a moment to reflect on the fact that this (influential) essay was scrubbed from Michael's (RIP) site very shortly after his death? His 'offical archives' 404 it. #waybackremembers
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So why should I listen to a man who wrote fiction for a living instead of actual scientists?
Resources and Liebig's law [Re:Not even wrong] (Score:5, Informative)
As far as I know rising temperatures and CO2 levels (within reason) improve the growth of all plants.
Nope. Rising CO2 helps plant growth only in places where CO2 is the limiting factor to growth. Like, for example, in greenhouses, where everything else is provided. (This is Liebig's law of the minimum: growth is dictated not by total resources available, but by the scarcest resource). On the Earth, CO2 is not the limiting resource in most places. But it is in some, so yes, CO2 levels do help some places. Climate-induced changes in rainfall, however, blow away the effect of CO2, because water really is the limiting resource in many places.
Higher temperature tends to be deleterious, not advantageous, in most of the arable land on the Earth. It may be possible to raze northern forests and add farmland in areas that are currently too cold, though; not clear that the studies looked at that. (The tundra is probably too far north to be usable in any case, due to sunlight availability, but there's a lot of northern forest).
My gut is scowling at this (Score:1)
Now don't get me wrong, my gut isn't a scientist by any stretch of the imagination but it is pretty good at sniffing out when something just seems off.
And this just seems off.
So according to this study, we put in more to produce what we do than we did some years ago, right?
How exactly have they accounted for soil fatigue and pest resistance to pesticides? Because it seems to me that when arable land is at a fixed size and you pull more and more out of this soil until some of it just can't give any more then
Re: My gut is scowling at this (Score:2)
Soil fatigue is not a problem yet for western farmers, yes the macro synthetic fertilizers leave out trace elements but they can adapt, rock flour etc.
Long term rangeland is getting ever so slowly fucked and peak everything will hit synthetic fertilizer, but for the moment as long there is water and sun it's all good.
What about soil quality (Score:2)
I'm not saying that warming isn't effecting crop yields, but how do you isolate for other variables like decreased soil quality?
Bug or Feature (Score:2)
"We must stop humanity before humanity exceeds the scope of Nature--hear me out--and annihilates Nature!"
and the:
"ZOMG, humanity is trashing itself and we're all gonna die!"
crowds is stunning.
How about some sort of steel cage match between both crowds and see who really believes their piffle in an ultimate sense?
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Nobody here cares about facts. Most of the arguments involve claims of data manipulation or using the models incorrectly. Yeah everyone is doing it wrong except for a handful of posters on a obscure nerd website. Why don't some of the "nerds" here run their own models and simulations to prove their point? The other argument says to read about that guy who worked for NASA. You look at his writings and it starts out with god an angels when talking about the climate. No point in reading any further there.
Really? then where is the famine? (Score:1)
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The plants are the real ag workers. And yes, their productivity is down because the planet is a tenth of a degree warmer. Take it up with their union.
You don't believe 1 study, so all is a hoax? (Score:4, Insightful)
Truth be told, climate change is a rich person's problem. Most people are worrying about making ends meet, but climate change solutions tend to bring jobs and in the long term, will bring lower cost and more reliable electricity...and lower acute poisoning fossil fuels. Everyone knows breathing exhaust is bad for you. Even if you like sucking off tail pipes, how much do you like oil subsidies or going to war in the middle east? Moving to sustainable living benefits everyone, rich and poor. For some things, it takes time and the transition can be inconvenient, but it's worth doing. Walk along a busy freeway...tell me you think that air is OK to breathe?
Also, if you've ever tried gardening, you know that erratic weather FUCKS over your plants. Is this study's numbers accurate? I don't know. I am not qualified to answer if it's actually 21% or not, but you can't deny that our weather is getting more erratic. Plants love sunlight and reasonable wind and temperature changes...in October, we had a massive snowstorm in Boston, unusually early, wrecked a bunch of fall harvests. Every February day that hits 70 degrees in my climate wrecks local plants that start blooming only to get buried in a snowstorm. Floods wreck crops. Hurricanes wreck crops in fall. Windy tropical storms wreck crops in Spring. Droughts in summer wreck crops...all of which are being recorded in increasing numbers...
Is it 21%...I don't know, but I am pretty confident productivity is going down due to weather alone. I have certainly seen that myself in the 15 years I've been planting things in my backyard. This year, it's massive windstorms killing my plants. Is that due to climate change? I don't know...but if we increased the number of spring windstorms...yeah, I can see how that wrecks crop productivity...when half the leaves on your tomato plants die every storm.
This is hogwash (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep, the climate is warming up, and you have climate change. But climate change is exactly that -- change. What will change is the temperate belts moving north, bad news if your a country in the south, but great news for places like Canada and Russia. Canada by itself could feed the whole world if they maxed out their ag capabilities. Climate change may mean we need to move production north, which sucks but it's something that can be done. Or the growing season may need to be modified. Water is an issue however, and that is a problem that needs to be solved in many regions. To say global productivity is down is a manipulation of numbers and speech with normalized numbers from what "would have happened". In relation: yeilds are at an all time high and show no signs of stopping.
Global Heating? (Score:2)
Global Warming, then Climate Change, new we're going full hysteric with Global Heating?
Guardian Hyperventilation up 100% (Score:1)
Designed to feed the dread and milk the emotions of those who choose to think they help the environment by pretending they care about it while driving their cars to a fast food restaurant.
No critical analysis in the article, no attempt to balance opinions with inconvenient facts of the many other points of view on the topic.
Just "It was published in an article with the word 'Nature' in it, so it must be true." as 'journalistic standard'.
Guardian Standards = Trash.
But
Food waste: Amount thrown away totals 900 million (Score:2)
Why producing more and more and more food when we're wasting so much? Over-production (not just food) IS what slowly killing the planet and fill our landfills.
ref: https://www.bbc.com/news/scien... [bbc.com]