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Page added on February 23, 2019
Food shocks increase as world warms
More than ever, the world’s ways of keeping hunger at bay are taking a pounding as food shocks become more frequent. Potatoes are being baked in heat waves. Corn is being parched by drought. Fruit is being bitten by frost.
And a long-term study suggests that for the world’s farmers and graziers, fishing crews and fish farmers, things will get worse as the world warms. Australian and US scientists report in the journal Nature Sustainability that they examined the incidence of what they call “food shocks” across 134 nations over a period of 53 years.
They found that some regions and some kinds of farming have suffered worse than others; that food production is vulnerable to volatile climate and weather changes; and that the dangers are increasing with time.
The researchers looked at cases of dramatic crop failure, harvest loss and fishing fleet failures between 1961 and 2013, as recorded by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and other sources, and then mapped shock frequency and co-occurrence.
In their database of 741 available time-series of food production, they found 226 cases of food shock: dramatic interruption of supply.
Hunger increases
Agriculture and livestock emerged as slightly more vulnerable to shock than fisheries and aquaculture. South Asia suffered most from crop damage or loss; the Caribbean for livestock, and Eastern Europe for fisheries; some of these regions were hard hit in more than one sector.
“The frequency of shocks has increased across all sectors at a global scale,” the authors report. “Increasing shock frequency is a food security concern in itself. Conflict-related shocks across sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East since 2010, combined with adverse climate conditions, are responsible for the first uptick in global hunger in recent times.”
More than half of all shocks to food production were climate-related, and drought was the biggest factor. Extreme weather accounted for a quarter of shocks to livestock, and disease outbreaks another 10%, but the biggest single factor for pastoral farmers arose from geopolitical conflict and other crises.
Fisheries seemed better protected, and the worst shocks to fish landings could be traced to overfishing. Disruption to fish farming – a relatively new form of food production – has grown at a faster rate and to a higher level than in any other sector.
Climate scientists and agricultural researchers have been warning for years that food security is at hazard from global warming and climate change, both driven by profligate human use of fossil fuels and unthinking destruction of forests and natural grasslands and wetlands.
Heat extremes can harm cereal yields almost anywhere, but Africa and south-east Asia are particularly at risk from changes in precipitation patterns.
The latest study is a reminder that, in some ways, the future has already arrived: the forewarned rise in climate extremes such as flood, heat and drought can be detected in the annual harvest tally around the globe.
And although a high percentage of the food supply damage can be linked to social conflict or political stress, climate change seems increasingly to be a factor in civil and international violence.
A new study for the UN security council – co-incidentally released on the same day – confirms the picture. Hunger and conflict are in a persistent and deadly partnership that threatens millions.
Mass famine
The number of food shocks fluctuates from year to year, the Nature Sustainability authors say. That is because factors such as social conflict and climate change can in synergy create a number of shocks across different sectors at different times. At least 22 of the 134 nations experienced shocks in many sectors over the same five-year time period.
In some cases, these shocks ended with more than just empty shelves. The collapse of the Soviet Union late in the last century removed some economic support from North Korea: subsequent floods precipitated a famine that killed 200,000 people.
Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991, and the subsequent Gulf War, devastated agricultural land and cost Kuwait’s commercial fishermen their livelihoods. Drought in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 decimated cereal yields, pastoralists lost fodder for their cattle and animal disease incidence soared.
“While the number of food shocks fluctuates from year to year, the long-term trend shows they are happening more often,” said Richard Cottrell of the University of Tasmania, who led the study.
“Globalized trade and the dependence of many countries on food imports mean that food shocks are a global problem, and the international community faces a significant challenge to build resilience.”
26 Comments on "Food shocks increase as world warms"
Shortend on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 8:39 am
Climate Change Enters Its Blood-Sucking Phase
As winters grow warmer in North America, thirsty ticks are on the move.
Debow, wielding his ruler, called out square-centimeter tick counts to Blouin: nine ticks in the first square centimeter, seven engorged; eight in the second, none engorged; 28, four engorged; eight, none. This count would later produce an estimated infestation total of just under 14,000 ticks. This was actually far fewer than they often found, but it was enough to render this calf chronically anemic from January through March and then acutely, fatally anemic in the last couple of weeks of his life. In April, when the gravid females start taking their blood meals, the blood loss over their last two to four weeks aboard the moose “can equate to a calf’s total blood volume,” according to one recent paper—some three and a half gallons. As Inga Sidor, the New Hampshire state veterinary pathologist who processed the tissue samples Debow and Blouin took that day, later told me, the ticks “literally bleed the moose to death.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/02/ticks-can-take-down-800-pound-moose/583189/
From 2008 through 2018, as Vermont’s moose population dropped from almost 5,000 to fewer than 2,000, the department had reduced permits from 1,251 (in 2008) to just 13 for the 2018 season, which itself was down from 80 the year before. (Even for 2018, they had to settle on 13 because they couldn’t get 14 approved.) Seven moose were taken. Walter Medwid, a founding member of the Vermont Wildlife Coalition, told Vermont’s Seven Days in early 2018 that he was baffled that the Fish and Wildlife Department “continues to feel the need to put hunting pressures on a species that is truly imperiled.” The moose population had plummeted straight past the target population in 2015—and they were going to hunt more? How the hell was that supposed to work
jawagord on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 9:40 am
Who funds these people to make these studies? The ubiquitous references to climate change is made even though it isn’t the cause of the problem, weather variability is the problem and that’s a natural occurrence that has been with humanity for our entire existence. No mention of population growth, no mention of unequal food distribution, no mention of the progress society has made in feeding the world’s people.
“The world has made great progress in reducing hunger: There are 216 million fewer hungry people than in 1990-92, despite a 1.9 billion increase in the world’s population. But there is still a long way to go, and no one organization can achieve Zero Hunger if it works alone.
In a world where we produce enough food to feed everyone, 821 million people – one in nine – still go to bed on an empty stomach each night. Even more – one in three – suffer from some form of malnutrition.”
https://www1.wfp.org/zero-hunger
Sissyfuss on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 10:13 am
Jaws, weather variability has evolved into weather extremes which is climate change. The last 5 years are the hottest and GHG is once again spiraling upward. Population growth is a multiplier along with ocean acidification and ice disappearance. Predicaments will foil our best remedies but that won’t stop the folly of optimism. Reality will crush us like the bugs that we are in essence.
Chrome Mags on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 11:04 am
jawagord has a good point, at least from the standpoint of arguing for denial. His denial is his opinion, but nonetheless, we may find that denial is a good strategy as we move forward towards problems associated with climate change intensifying, i.e. to develop as a species a greater ability to solidify rock hard our denial.
That is if we decide we are unable to chart a different course. If we decide to just stick to record setting carbon emissions because, well it’s the easiest course for us, and we love our big ICE personal trucks, then denial may be our best way of coping with increasingly difficult situations arising from climate feedbacks.
Obviously that greater ability of the masses to remain in denial, however much that ability might be honed, could inevitably reach of a point of being extremely difficult to hold, if say the temperature and humidity exceed the wet bulb temperature a human body can handle and no AC is available, animals are dropping dead (like the 30% loss of fruit bats in Australia in the past few weeks), or Australian livestock dropping dead or drowning in a once in a 100 year floods, or when a heatwave occurs in the future that potentially kills millions of people. Then you really need to stand strong in denial. Avoid being affected by those incidents, like coral bleaching from too high water temps, increasing magnitude and number of hurricanes, sea level rise like what is occurring in Miami, or the weather getting juiced with massive water content in clouds and the weather getting stuck with 52″ of rain falling in Houston, TX., or the fires plaguing California that didn’t use to occur because the foliage was not as dry.
There needs to be a denial mantra that people can chant that goes like this;
“It’s just natural weather fluctuations!”
claes on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 1:22 pm
Siss, you are so right:
“Predicaments will foil our best remedies but that won’t stop the folly of optimism.”
onlooker on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 4:43 pm
Welcome to our future NOW
makati1 on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 5:41 pm
Did you know that the US imports 20% of its food?
How would the American diet change if it did not import? Well, things like coffee and chocolate would disappear. Fresh fruits and veggies in the off season would disappear. Many things would become more expensive as the US cannot produce enough, like fish and other seafood.
Americans, if you want to check out how much of what you eat is imported:
https://classroom.synonym.com/list-of-foods-imported-into-the-us-12080392.html
Climate change is going to impact everyone eventually. Even the deniers. lol
Davy on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 6:07 pm
Makato, did you know the US helps feed your Asia?
intellectual nematode Alert! on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 6:30 pm
Davy on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 6:07 pm
makati1 on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 6:40 pm
Davy, “My Asia” is the Philippines. I’m sure Africa and Russia will continue to supply China. I’m not concerned about them.
I have most of what I want growing on the farm. There is a chicken ranch and a piggery nearby. The fishing port is walking distance. We raise chickens, tilapia, fruits and veggies. This is a typical Filipino setup. (7,000 islands, no frost, plenty of rain.)
Yes, the cities will empty eventually, but the people will just go back to their family in the countryside. Americans cannot do that. Americans are going to suffer more than most Asians because an Asian can live on rice and fish. Ask an American to do so for every meal.
I just came back from the wet market with a fresh killed chicken, a chunk of beef for roast, and six thick pork chops all just slaughtered this am. Nothing frozen.
Yesterday, I bought some Marlin steaks and a kilo of extra large shrimp at the same market. All fresh, not frozen. Does that sound like there is a food problem?
Yes, I enjoy wine and cheese from Europe, dried fruit from the ME, and a few items from the US, but I can easily substitute native cheese, wine and fruits when necessary.
How many Americans could survive without the supermarkets?
Davy on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 6:46 pm
makato, did you know that the P’s is a net food importer?
Davy on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 6:54 pm
“China’s Premier Slams Central Bank For Gargantuan Credit Injection”
https://tinyurl.com/yxj67yxw
“Last week many traders were dumbfounded when, just as speculation was building that China was preparing to unleash a massive credit expansion a la Shanghai Accord, Beijing confirmed that it had indeed decided to massively reflate its (and the global) economy, in what may soon be dubbed the Shanghai Accord 2.0, when the PBOC announced it had flooded the economy with a gargantuan 4.64 trillion yuan in various new forms of debt which comprise China’s Total Social Financing in January, including notably, the “shadow” credit which Beijing had been aggressively cracking down on: an aggressive credit expansion which many took as a tacit confirmation that China was losing the fight with deleveraging.”
Graph: https://tinyurl.com/y3twk625
Graph: https://tinyurl.com/y239l72l
“There’s one more thing: while China’s reckless credit flood will only result in even more tears in the end, for now it may well be the only thing that keep the global economy from foundering because as we showed last week, the only chart that truly matters for the global economy is the size of China’s credit impulse, and whether Beijing can do it again. As shown below, already the world economy is set for a steep drop just to catch down to where China’s credit creation has been recently.”
Free Speech Forum on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 7:24 pm
Yesterday the government wanted your photo.
Today the government wants your fingerprints.
Tomorrow the government will want your DNA.
Next week the government will want you to register your guns.
Next month the government will confiscate your guns.
Next year the government will send you to the concentration camps.
How much are you going to take?
Americans should go hardcore about resisting oppression now.
The police state doesn’t keep you safe. Tyranny actually increases danger because it gives people a false sense of security and leads to more terrorism. The government takes away your right protect yourself, but the state won’t protect you.
The main point of the police state is to crush resistance to the 1%
If there is TSA groping and NSA wiretapping then why is there still terrorism?
Americans should start wearing wigs, disguises, bandages, beards, hats, sunglasses, head scarves, and surgical masks.
Americans should report everyone to the police as terrorists to keep the police busy and to make a mockery of the police state while waking people up about the danger of tyranny.
Americans should get fake ID’s and sell, trade, or give away like candy copies of their birth certificates, Social Security cards, passports, and driver licenses.
Americans should smuggle to avoid taxes and tariffs and make victimless gun possession, prostitution, drugs, licensing, and gambling laws unenforceable.
No one rules if no obeys.
They can’t kill us all.
The government and illegal immigrants don’t obey the law, so why should Americans obey the law and pay taxes that they didn’t vote for?
The USA is no longer a democracy. Everything is illegal and everyone is a criminal. Obeying the law is difficult when the laws constantly change, the laws are contradictory, and our overlords don’t even tell us what the laws are.
Many Americans feel powerless to do anything about the expanding police state, but they can still fight back.
What if Americans just dropped out and stopped supporting US wars, debt, and tyranny?
What if everyone became stateless?
https://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/stateless-fear-an-asylum-story/Content?oid=7271045
What if everyone stopped using their name?
What if everyone stopped using banks and started buying gold, bartering, and hiding cash?
What if everyone bought farms using anonymous private shell corporations?
https://boldanddetermined.com/how-own-your-house-car-anonymously/
What if everyone stopped driving cars and getting driver licenses?
What if everyone stopped using phones and the Internet?
What if everyone stopped flying?
What if everyone stopped paying taxes?
What if everyone stopped joining the military?
What if everyone stopped voting?
What if everyone avoided being photographed?
What if everyone took responsibility for themselves and refused to sign up for Obamacare instead of relying on the government?
Maybe the elites want everyone to give up, but at least we won’t be paying them.
Think.
Pass the word.
makati1 on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 7:26 pm
Davy, How about a reference for your assertion “… the P’s is a net food importer?” And what does it import? Delicacies for it’s elite and tourists? Please specify.
I point out that the US imports 20 percent of the food it consumes. Why don’t you prove me wrong? Because you cannot. My comment is fact, not hypocrisy. One bad year and the US will be in serious trouble of the grain crops fail or California burns.
https://www.fdaimports.com/blog/how-much-of-u-s-food-is-imported/
35% of fresh produce
70% of sea food
20% of the total food supply
Davy on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 7:43 pm
Just google it next time makato so you don’t look stupid
“How the country can export more farm products | The Manila Times ..”
https://tinyurl.com/y27g2dur
“On the other hand, the Philippines still imports rice. The country is not only a net rice importer but also a net food importer, as it exported $5.7 billion worth of farm and food products in 2016 and imported $11 billion.Mar 2, 2018”
Davy on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 7:45 pm
“I point out that the US imports 20 percent of the food it consumes. Why don’t you prove me wrong? Because you cannot.”
Big difference makato, the US import luxuries it does not have to have. It exports the basics of the human food chain that more than make up for the 20% the US imports.
makati1 on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 8:08 pm
No, Davy, veggies and fruits (35%) and fish (70%) are NOT luxuries, they are necessities. Maybe you would like to eat corn all the time, but most of the corn grown in the US is for animals or cars, tough and not very tasty. I know, I used to eat “field corn” when I was a kid.
As for the Ps’ rice imports, that is correct. It varies by year if a typhoon destroys a large rice growing area as sometimes happens. I point out that most of the Philippines imports are truly luxuries that are consumed by the millions of tourists, foreign students and the elite, not the average Filipino. They are not necessities. You can only buy them in the cities.
Not so in the US. Most of what the US imports are necessities for the average American. Prove me wrong. Would you like to do without coffee? Can you imagine how much food would cost if there were no imports? I can. I lived when there was only canned food in the winter months. Nothing fresh. A large part of American’s income went for food then. Ditto if imports stop now. Poverty and famine in a few weeks.
Arrogance and denial. Hypocrisy, Davy, but you and America are experts at hypocrisy.
Davy on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 9:40 pm
OK makato. Fair enough. You win another debate, just like you always do.
I wish I can get my dumbass emotional crap under control but without assistance I’m only going to get even more fucked up then I already am.
Call me stupid.
Sissyfuss on Sun, 24th Feb 2019 12:10 am
Usually I’m asleep by now but there’s a thunderstorm with heavy rain followed by a bomb cyclone Sunday all day and all night with 60 mph gusts. I’m about 60 miles from the Indiana-Ohio-Michigan collection point. We’ve been 10° 15° above lately but are predicted to be below normal for the next 3 weeks. Whole winter has been back and forth. No consistency.
makati1 on Sun, 24th Feb 2019 12:29 am
World weather is crazy, Sissyfuss. I’ve been tracking a Cat2 typhoon that is passing just West of Guam. Very unusual for this time of year here.
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Early-Start-2019-Typhoon-Season-Category-2-Wutip-Heads-Towards-Guam?cm_ven=hp-slot-3
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-227.48,18.69,700
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/850hPa/orthographic=-119.27,29.33,700
Davy on Sun, 24th Feb 2019 4:30 am
“No, Davy, veggies and fruits (35%) and fish (70%) are NOT luxuries, they are necessities.”
Bullshit makato, they are a seasonal enjoyment that America ns have become accustomed to like the rest of the world. The US can produce these locally if push came to shove. Americans could be eating seasonal and locally but they don’t because of globalism. Got it?
“Maybe you would like to eat corn all the time, but most of the corn grown in the US is for animals or cars, tough and not very tasty. I know, I used to eat “field corn” when I was a kid.”
My point is makato we import 20% of our food that are luxuries. The other skew is dollar value. These luxury items are high dollar items so it appears that the imports are greater than they are. Another issue with US food production a significant amount is made into biofuels. Your P’s is a “REAL” net importer the US is an economic one.
“Not so in the US. Most of what the US imports are necessities for the average American. Prove me wrong. “
I did above
“Poverty and famine in a few weeks.”
Quit the agenda drama, fool
“Arrogance and denial. Hypocrisy, Davy, but you and America are experts at hypocrisy”
Go choke on a chicken bone old man you are near that age.
JuanP identity theft on Sun, 24th Feb 2019 4:31 am
Not Davy
Davy on Sat, 23rd Feb 2019 9:40 pm OK makato. Fair enough. You win another debate, just like you always do. I wish I can get my dumbass emotional crap under control but without assistance I’m only going to get even more fucked up then I already am. Call me stupid.
Cloggie on Sun, 24th Feb 2019 6:06 am
In a couple of years gasoline cars could be outlawed after a couple of repetitions of the ultra-hot Summer of 2018. 2019 could be worse. Diesel cars are already on the verge of being outlawed in Germany.
In that light, this article could represent the truth, namely that e-vehicles could be on the verge of a breakthrough:
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/02/23/electric-cars-are-about-to-absolutely-demolish-gasmobiles/
I know, my next car will be an e-vehicle, in five years max.
Davy on Sun, 24th Feb 2019 6:18 am
“In a couple of years gasoline cars could be outlawed after a couple of repetitions of the ultra-hot Summer of 2018. 2019 could be worse. Diesel cars are already on the verge of being outlawed in Germany.”
Highly unlikely and for more reasons than the economics. Electric cars are no clean currently. Until renewables charge EV’s their green credentials are “FAKE”
“In that light, this article could represent the truth, namely that e-vehicles could be on the verge of a breakthrough:”
Not by a long shot. Get out of your delusionist fake green lying agenda
“I know, my next car will be an e-vehicle, in five years max.”
If you want to be real green try not joy riding around Europe like you do multiple times a year.
MrT's awkward cousin on Sun, 24th Feb 2019 6:39 am
Dont matta yo crazy niggaz! My bunker is ready and the sex dwarves are lubed. I have 17 years worth of Dr Pepper and twinkies to see me thru the heats man!
Y’all just a bunch of jibba jabbering foools!
BigfatcuntheadofGM on Sun, 24th Feb 2019 6:43 am
Yes but cars are freedom and wonderful and diesel mileage is better!
War is peace and ignorance is strength!