Climate change

Middle East drought a threat to global food prices

Reuters,

7 March, 2014

The Middle East's driest winter in several decades could pose a threat to global food prices, with local crops depleted and farmers' livelihoods blighted, U.N. experts and climatologists say.

Varying degrees of drought are hitting almost two thirds of the limited arable land across Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the Palestinian territories and Iraq.

"Going back to the last 100 years, I don't think you can get a five-year span that's been as dry," said Mohammad Raafi Hossain, a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) environmental economist.

The dry season has already hurt prospects for the cereal harvest in areas of Syria and to a lesser extent Iraq. Several of the countries under pressure are already significant buyers of grain from international markets.

"When governments that are responsible for importing basic foodstuffs have shortages in production, they will go to outside markets, where the extra demand will no doubt push global food prices higher," said Nakd Khamis, seed expert and consultant to the FAO.

The Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) shows the region has not had such low rainfall since at least 1970.

This was part of the initial findings of a joint technical study on Drought Risk Management undertaken by several U.N. agencies, including the FAO, UNDP and UNESCO, that would be formally published later this month, Hossain said.

Water and agriculture authorities, alongside specialist U.N. agencies, have begun preparing plans to officially declare a state of drought that spreads beyond the Eastern Middle East to Morocco and as far south as Yemen, climatologists and officials say.

Drought is becoming more severe in parts of the Eastern Mediterranean and Iraq, while Syria, having seen several droughts in recent decades, is again being hit hard, said Mohamad Khawlie, a natural resources expert with Planinc, an international consultancy focused on geospatial studies in the Middle East and Africa (MENA) region.

In Jordan, among the 10 countries facing the worst water shortages globally, Hazem al-Nasser, minister of water and irrigation, told Reuters precipitation levels were the lowest since records began 60 years ago.

Even after an exceptionally heavy snow storm that hit the region in mid-December, the kingdom's dams are still only 42 percent full, down from 80 percent last year, officials say.

In Lebanon, where climate change has stripped its mountain slopes of the snow needed to recharge groundwater basins, rain is "way below the average", said Beirut-based ecosystem and livelihoods consultant Fady Asmar, who works with U.N. agencies.

He said the stress on water resources from prodigal usage was exacerbated by the presence of nearly a million registered refugees since the Syrian civil war began in 2011.

Only Israel will not face acute problems, helped by its long-term investment in desalination plants and pioneering water management techniques.

In Iraq and Syria, where most of the country is too arid for agriculture, civil conflict and lack of water storage facilities will add to the hardship of rural communities dependent on crop cultivation and livestock.

U.N.-based field studies show that over 30 percent of households in Iraq, Syria and to a lesser extent the Palestinian territories and Jordan, are connected with agriculture.

"Crop production is going down because of drought, and so in these agro-pastoral economies you are looking at many, many lives that are now affected," Hossain said.

In Iraq, which once boasted the largest tracts of fertile arable land in the region, it is only three years since the last major cycle of drought ended, which covered more than 73 percent of the country.

Extracts from a soon-to-be released U.N.-commissioned study says drought in Iraq will persist, increasing in severity from 2017 to 2026, increasing further the dependence on foreign food imports by one of the top grains importers in the world.

The U.N. study extracts say Turkey, where much of Iraq and Syria's water resources originate, has cut the volume of water flowing into the Euphrates and Tigris rivers by dam construction to meet their own growing domestic needs.

SYRIA

A poor rain season in Syria has already hit its 2014 wheat outlook in the main rain-fed areas in the north eastern parts of the country, which should be ready for harvest in June and July, Syrian agriculturalists say.

Experts say that even if late heavy rain comes in March, this will not save the rain-fed cereal harvest, which farmers are already resigned to relegating to animal fodder.

"When there is delay in rains, then the cereals will eventually wilt. Annual growth has not been achieved for the rain to come and continue maturity of the stalks," Asmar said.

Crop production in the conflict-torn country that once boasted bumper wheat seasons is expected to decline further.

Syria's wheat production is now pinned on the irrigated sown areas that depend on the Euphrates and underground water, which before 2011 accounted for no more than 40 percent of total annual production.

The drought and war could slash Syria's total wheat output to less than a third of its pre-crisis harvest of around 3.5 million tonnes to just over a million tonnes in 2014. Agricultural experts say the most favourable estimates for last year's harvest did not exceed 2 million tonnes.

Drought that peaked in severity during 2008 and 2009 but persisted into 2010 was blamed by some experts in Syria for the soaring food prices that aggravated social tensions and in turn triggered the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

"Prior to the protests, food costs were soaring. In fact, because of these food costs, the protests were instigated, so this was brought on by drought and lack of planning," said FAO's Hossain.

Economic hardship was aggravated by faltering public subsidy schemes that once efficiently distributed subsidized fertilizers and seeds to millions of drought-hit farmers in both Syria and Iraq, agro-economists add.

Middle-Eastern experts predict more frequent drought cycles in coming years, accompanied by delayed winter rainy seasons that damage fruits by promoting premature flowering and prevent cereal crops growing to full maturity.

"The climate change cycles are now shorter, which means ... we will eventually have less rain and more frequent droughts," Fady Asmar said.

Untimely Rains Hit Cuban Tobacco Harvest

Interpress Service,

6 March, 2014

SAN JUAN Y MARTÍNEZ, Cuba, Mar 6 2014 (IPS) - Near the close of the harvest , local people in the Cuban municipality of San Juan y Martínez, which boasts the finest tobacco plantations in the world, are seeing their hopes of a plentiful season dashed by unexpected winter rains.

“It’s been a bad year, a rebellious one as we call it. There was a lot of rain, which rots the plants. Tobacco needs sun during the day and cold at night,” 67-year-old Dámaso Rodríguez, a worker on the Valle plantation in this municipality, 180 kilometres west of Havana, in the province of Pinar del Río, told IPS.

“We are late with the farm chores,” said Yamilé Venero, a young tobacco worker on the same plantation. “It’s not worth planting again,” added María Teresa Ventos, a 54-year-old woman who comes every season to string the tobacco leaves onto long poles for drying in this agricultural industry which is a source of temporary jobs for women.

Since November, when the season started, there has been too much rain in the province which was expected to supply 70 percent of the 26,400 tonnes of tobacco leaf forecast for the 2013-2014 harvest. San Juan y Martínez and the neighbouring municipality of San Luis were severely affected; between them they provide 86 percent of the tobacco for the prized and costly Havana cigars.

Local sources reported the loss of 813 hectares in Pinar del Río and partial damage in a further 1,000 hectares, out of the provincial plan for 15,000 hectares. Many farms had to uproot their tobacco plants and replant three times over.

Tobacco is Cuba’s third export, after nickel and medical products.

In 2013, the country earned 447 million dollars from tobacco, eight percent more than in 2012 when the Anglo-Cuban corporation Habanos S.A. made 416 million dollars. It is the sole vendor of Cuban cigars worldwide, trading in 160 countries, with most of its business in Europe, although cigars are doing well in Asia and the Middle East.

The storm clouds over Pinar del Río, in the west of the country, may hurt sales this year, along with other problems like tough anti-tobacco laws in Europe and the economic blockade imposed by the United States on Cuba because of the of conflict between Washington and Havana that has gone on for half a century.

To weather the damage done by the downpours, plantations in Pinar extended their planting season, which usually ends in January, by 45 days, and delayed other major tasks of the current tobacco harvest. They have also resorted to harvesting “capadura” (lower quality) leaf and plant regrowth, in order to maximise production.

On the Valle plantation, 12 skilled men continue to harvest tobacco leaves and take them to a high-roofed wooden barn at one side of the estate. Inside, 12 women string the leaves in bunches and arrange them on long poles which are then hung in tiers right up to the slanted roof for traditional curing (controlled drying) in air.

“After all, the tobacco is good quality, but not as good as before,” Rodríguez said. This veteran tobacco grower, the son and grandson of peasant farmers, is concerned that the strange weather in his birthplace “is no longer the same” as it was three decades ago.

The unique combination of temperature, soil and humidity in the Vuelta Abajo region, in the west of the province, is essential for the development of the best handmade premium cigars on the planet, a process that involves close to 190 different operations.

Only here can all the types of leaf be grown that are used in making cigars, the successors to the rolled leaves smoked by native people on the island of Cuba when Spanish colonists arrived in 1492.

Dayana Hernández and Aliet Achkienazi, researchers at the state Meteorology Institute, have forecast that this territory will become warmer every decade this century, unsettling the conditions that give Cuban cigars their exclusive taste, aroma and texture and have earned them their protected designation of origin (PDO).

The PDO protects agricultural products that have a quality and characteristics fundamentally or exclusively due to geographical factors in their place of origin. In this case it is reserved for cigars of over three grams, made in Cuba according to traditional methods from varieties of Cuban black tobacco.

The study “Impacto del cambio climático sobre el cultivo del tabaco en la zona de Pinar del Río, Cuba” (Impact of climate change on tobacco cultivation in the area of Pinar del Río, Cuba) analysed particularly productive districts in the province, including San Juan y Martínez and San Luis.

On the basis of future climate scenarios, the authors forecast that rising temperatures will not cause great harm in the next few decades, but later on, as warming increases, crop yields will decline. However, in the north of the area they studied, the climate will be more stable and it is less likely that temperatures will exceed 25 degrees Celsius.

The study found that “the impact of climate change can be mitigated in conditions compatible with the sustainable development” of the delicate tobacco leaf. It recommended “further research” into the effects of imbalances in the rainfall patterns on the plantations.

The experienced eye of Francisco José Prieto, the manager of the Valle plantation, who owns 4.5 hectares that have belonged to his family since his grandfather’s days, led him to take steps ahead of the inclement weather.

He planted early, and was already harvesting “when the rains intensified,” he told IPS. “I didn’t have to replant,” said this member and president of the Tomás Valdés Credit and Services Cooperative (CCS), which groups 50 farms in Vuelta Abajo.

The CCSs were created in the 1960s as voluntary associations of small farmers who retain ownership of their land, and gain collective access to technologies, financing and sales facilities for their products.

But in spite of his efforts, Prieto doubts whether this harvest will be as good as the last, when his farm produced 158 quintals (7,272 kilos), a record result.

Prieto uses soil conservation techniques on his land. He sprays the tobacco only once, and after the harvest, he plants crop varieties that improve the soil, like maize and jack beans. “They provide shade, conserve nutrients that otherwise would be washed away by the rains, and they are dug in as a green manure,” he said.

The 44,863 people living in San Juan y Martínez, on large estates dotted with simple houses with light roofs, depend on the success of each tobacco harvest. “We are paid fixed wages, with bonuses for productivity,” union leader Celeste Muñoz told IPS.

Constantly working dry tobacco wrapper leaf from the last harvest on her roller, Muñoz, employed for the last 17 years in a centre for tobacco collection, selection and processing, said that her team of 50 women is trying to “recover as much dry leaf as possible.”

She is not sure whether it is “because of the climate, the fertilisers or the variety planted,” but she claims that the yield “is less than before. We got as many as 1,000 quintals (46,039 kilos) of dry leaf in one season,” she said nostalgically.

New Government Report Warns of 'Cascading System Failures' Caused By Climate Change

Huffington Post,

7 March, 2014

WASHINGTON -- From roads and bridges to power plants and gas pipelines, American infrastructure is vulnerable to the effects of climate change, according to a pair of government reports released Thursday.

The reports are technical documents supporting the National Climate Assessment, a major review compiled by 13 government agencies that the U.S. Global Change Research Program is expected to release in April. Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory put together the reports, which warn that climate-fueled storms, flooding and droughts could cause "cascading system failures" unless there are changes made to minimize those effects. Island Press has published the full-length version of the reports, which focus on energy and infrastructure more broadly.

Thomas Wilbanks, a research fellow at Oak Ridge and the lead author and editor of the reports, said this is the first attempt to look at the climate implications across all sectors and regions. Rather than isolating specific types of infrastructure, Wilbanks said, the report looks at how "one impact can have impacts on the others."

Previous extreme weather events, which scientists warn may be exacerbated by climate change, offer insight to the types of failures they're talking about. For example, during Hurricane Katrina, the loss of electricity in the region meant that several major oil pipelines could not ship oil and gas for several days, and some refineries could not operate. Gas prices rose around the country.

Other scenarios include a major storm wiping out communications lines, a blackout that cuts power to sewage treatment or wastewater systems, and a weather event that damages a bridge or major highway. In the latter case, the damage would not only cost money to repair, but could cause traffic backups or delays in the shipment of goods, which could in turn have wider economic implications. As the report describes it:

A central theme of the report is that vulnerabilities and impacts are issues beyond physical infrastructures themselves. The concern is with the value of services provided by infrastructures, where the true consequences of impacts and disruptions involve not only the costs associated with the cleanup, repair, and/or replacement of affected infrastructures but also economic, social, and environmental effects as supply chains are disrupted, economic activities are suspended, and/or social well-being is threatened.

While many reports on climate change focus on the long-term impacts, looking ahead 50 or 100 years, the effects described in Thursday's reports are the kind that cities, states and the federal government can expect to see in the next few decades, Wilbanks said.

"There's this crunch between vulnerability of infrastructure because it's aging or stressed because they are so heavily used, and they're being exposed to new threats like more frequent, extreme weather events," says Wilbanks. All this comes at a time, Wilbanks said, where governments at every level are facing "great difficulty in coming up with public sector financing to replace or revitalize them."

The energy report also exposes vulnerabilities in the system. It points to recent cases where heat waves caused massive spikes in energy use for cooling buildings, putting strain on the power grid. It also highlights instances where power plants were at risk of flooding, or had to shut down or scale back operations due to high temperaturesand droughts.

"One-quarter of existing power generation facilities are in counties associated with some type of water sustainability concern,” said David Schmalzer, co-author of the energy-focused report. "Warmer air and water are expected to reduce the efficiency of thermal power, while hydropower and biofuels will also face increased uncertainty. Even electricity sources not dependent on water supplies, such as wind and solar power, also face increased variability, as a changing climate will potentially impact the variability of their resources."

"Fixing infrastructure resilience problems [requires] a partnership between different levels of government, industry, nongovernmental organizations and community groups. No one party is the best to do it all," said Wilbanks. "What we really need is some innovative thinking about financing."