In the context of a "10 % reduction in crop yields" it might be worthwhile reading the second article reposted from last year.
Is
it "lies,lies and statistics"?
Weather
Extremes Slash
Cereal Yields
Wheat
and other cereal crops in Australia, above, and other developed
countries have been devastated. (CSIRO via Wikimedia Commons)
LONDON—Climate
change may have already begun to take its toll of agriculture. New
research suggests that drought and extreme heat in the last 50 years
have reduced
cereal production by up to 10%.
And, for once, developed nations may have sustained greater losses
than developing nations.
Researchers
have been warning for years that global warming as a consequence of
rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere—in turn, a
pay-off from increased fossil fuel combustion—will result in a
greater frequency or intensity in extremes
of weather.
They
have also warned more recently that weather-related extremes could
damage food
security in Europe, Africa and India.
Global
cost
But
a study
in Nature journal by
Navin Ramankutty, professor in global food security and
sustainability at the University
of British Columbia in
Canada, and colleagues is perhaps the first to identify the global
cost of weather-related disasters in the last half of the 20th
century.
The
researchers looked at 2,800 extreme hydro-meteorological
disasters—floods, droughts and extremes of heat and cold—reported
between 1964 and 2007 from 177 countries, and matched the data with
production figures for 16 cereal crops.
They
could detect no significant influence from floods or ice storms, but
they found that drought and extreme heat reduced average national
cereal production by between 9% and 10%.
Drought
reduced both cereal yield and the area under harvest, while heat
mainly affected yield. This is likely to be a consequence of
different timescales: droughts can last for years, but heatwaves tend
to be counted in no more than weeks.
“Until now we did not know
exactly how much global production was lost
to such extreme weather events.”
And
the more developed nations reported harvest reductions from 8% to 11%
more than the poorer societies. In Australia, North America and
Europe, harvest levels dropped by an average of 19.9% because of
drought—roughly double the global average.
Significantly,
the more recent droughts had a far larger effect on cereal production
than the earlier droughts, the implication being that such extreme
events are on the increase.
Research
such as this depends on clever statistical approaches and vast
volumes of data—much of it from UN agencies such as the Food and
Agriculture Organisation and the Emergency Events Database, which
recently confirmed that extreme
weather-related events are more frequent.
And,
the researchers say, the hazards to harvests will continue, and
continue to row.
Climate
projections
“Present
climate projections suggest that extreme heat events will be
increasingly common and severe in the future,” they report.
“Droughts are likely to become more frequent in some regions,
although considerable uncertainty persists in the projections.”
Professor
Ramankutty says: “We have always known that extreme weather causes
crop production losses. But until now we did not know exactly how
much global production was lost to such extreme weather events, and
how they varied by different regions of the world.”
His
co-author, Corey Lesk, a geographer at McGill
University in
Montreal, Canada, says: “Across the breadbaskets of North America,
for example, the crops and methods of farming are very uniform across
huge areas, so if a drought hits in a way that is damaging to those
crops, they will all suffer.
“By
contrast, in much of the developing world, the cropping systems are a
patchwork of small fields with diverse crops. If a drought hits, some
of those crops may be damaged, but others may survive.”
Tim
Radford, a founding editor of Climate News Network, worked for The
Guardian for 32 years, for most of that time as science editor. He
has been covering climate change since 1988.
This might be the most important news (apart from what's happening in the Arctic)
Mongolia has lost 80 percent of their crops due to drought.
Mongolia has lost 80 percent of their crops due to drought.
China and Russia, according to this article have lost 20-25 per cent of their crops.
20-15 per cent!!
80
percent of crops dead, 150 billion MNT buried in the ground
Approximately
80 percent of Mongolia’s crops have died this summer due to extreme
drought across the country, according to board member of the
Mongolian Plantation Union B.Erdenebat
24
July, 2015
Though
the situation has reached a critical level, the Ministry of Industry
and Agriculture has yet to take action, let alone announce to the
public what is happening.
According
to B.Erdenebat, who is more commonly known as a member of the famous
Mongolian pop group Camerton, crop fields remain productive in only
in the regions of the Khalkh River in Bulgan and Selenge provinces.
Not
counting equipment purchase costs, B.Erdenebat said the damages
amount to 150 billion MNT so far. Some soums have started preparing
soil for next year, as it is evident that no yield can be expected
this year.
According
to B.Erdenebat, crop farmers and provinces have been urging the
ministry to prepare for cloud seeding to force rain, without much
success, since winter.
“Crop
farmers and union members have been telling the ministry [about
drought conditions] all winter. We asked them to allocate a budget
and prepare cloud seeding equipment and cartridges. We reminded them
that plantation yield is cyclical and that since the last few years
gave a good harvest, this year will be difficult. But the ministry
did not take any measures. They have been very irresponsible in this
regard. They kept reciting bad financial standings and didn’t heed
our words,” B.Erdenebat told Udriin Sonin.
“Almost
80 percent of the cloud seeding cartridges were used to put out the
wildfire in Dornod Province this spring… China and Russia have lost
20 to 25 percent of their crops, but we lost 80 percent,” he dded.
Although
cloud seeding has been effective in bringing about rain in the past,
the union said that the state’s cloud seeding personnel had been
changed entirely and the new staff haven’t been able to produce
rain effectively.
The
prices of flour and rice will increase this fall due to the losses in
crops, according to analysts.
Last
year, Mongolia harvested more than it had in over 17 years, but the
state only reserved 30,000 tons of grain, a one-month reserve.
According to B.Erdenebat, the Plantation Union advised the ministry
to buy reserves from private companies, and received no response.
“Mongolia
should at least have a year’s worth of reserve since it can’t
manage four to five years like bigger countries. But the ministry
didn’t listen. The people will feel what it’s like to live in a
country with no reserve this fall,” he said.
B.Erdenebat
said that when given the official report on the dying crops, the
ministry told him “not to be so downtrodden and think about good
things.”
The
Ministry of Agriculture refused to comment via phone on the issue.
B.Erdenebat
said that next year will also be a difficult one for crop farmers and
plantations, as cyclical droughts usually continue for two to three
years.
The
consequences of going thirsty
It
is astounding how little attention is being given to the agricultural
industry issue when it is in such a dire state. The domestic
production of Mongolia’s most basic food commodity of flour and
grain has just been cut.
Any
smart food supplier should be ramping up their reserves of wheat and
rice right now, because it doesn’t take an economist to know that
prices are about to jump. Inflation is bound to increase this fall,
illustrating once again just how fragile and vulnerable Mongolia is
to external and environmental shocks.
For
years, the agricultural sector has provided the most jobs in
Mongolia, particularly in rural areas, and received substantial state
support and subsidies.
Other sectors enviously point out how crop
farmers get all sorts of soft loans for equipment, seed, and
supplies, as well as subsidies for their production, but other
industries can’t.
The
state has invested hundreds of billions of MNT over the years to
bring the agricultural sector to where it is now, but when the public
investment started to look shaky, the ministry did nothing. It hasn’t
even told the nation that 80 percent of its crops have died this
summer.
According
to the Plantation Union, the government had been warned about the
approaching drought months before it hit peak levels. The lack of
action and indolence illustrates a big failure on the part of the
government to manage a crisis and the country’s economy.
Time
and time again the people of Mongolia have watched governments and
state heads make mistake after mistake, and hide and scramble instead
of acknowledging and working to rectify their faults.
State
officials and ministers need to realize that public funds are not
their personal property to be squandered at their whim, and that
their decisions impact the lives of all the people in Mongolia.
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