Monday, 1 December 2014

Food security


Abrupt climate change and the world’s food production

This is the situation with the world's oceans at present. 

It is known that 80% of the warming on earth has been absorbed by the oceans and this is shown in the following map which shows temperature anomalies in the world oceans with many "hot spots".

Whether or not we are going to see an el-Nino develop we are seeing a major uptick in extreme weather events - floods and droughts - everywhere on the planet


Changes in the Earths Ocean and Average Temperatures. All Data taken from NASA GISS and NOAA.


The following shows temperature anomalies worldwide, centered across the Arctic, across most of Russia, the Amazon etc.

We have already seen worrying signs, such as the failure of the Russian wheat crop which was, in part responsible for the Arab spring.

Here climate change researcher, Paul Beckwith, from the University of Ottawa talks about the possibility of multiple crop failures



Here are just some of the recent stories that testify to this. Thanks to Kristy Lewis in Sydney.

GRAINS-Wheat up for 2nd day as harsh weather threatens crops





SINGAPORE, Nov 26 (Reuters) - U.S. wheat rose for a second
session on Wednesday as cold weather threatens to curb yields in
top exporters the United States, Russia and Ukraine.

Soybeans edged lower, giving up some of last session's
gains, while corn was largely unchanged after rallying 1.8
percent on Tuesday on the back of strong demand from ethanol
producers and animal feed makers.

FUNDAMENTALS

* Chicago Board of Trade wheat is being underpinned by cold
weather hitting freshly planted winter crops. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture rated 58 percent of the U.S. winter
wheat crop as good to excellent, down from 60 percent the
previous week, following the cold spell.

* Major Black Sea wheat producers Russia and Ukraine may
fail to harvest a record wheat crop next year due to the poor
condition of their winter plantings, traders and forecasters
said.

* The market is monitoring crop conditions in Argentina,
where excessive rains in some areas have threatened wheat
quality.
* U.S. FOB Gulf corn basis offers were 5 to 7 cents a bushel
higher for January to March loadings with a firmer barge market
and competition from processors helping boost flat prices.

* The rally in soybeans on Tuesday was driven by gains in
soymeal, a key protein source in animal feed, which remained in
short supply domestically. The record-large U.S. soybean harvest
is 97 percent complete, but robust export sales of soybeans and
soymeal have kept domestic processors in the hunt for fresh
supplies.

* Traders also cited a Congressional Budget Office
preliminary forecast for U.S. soybean plantings to drop by 2
million acres in 2015. A CBO spokesman said the office did not
release new official U.S. crop projections this week, but
confirmed that estimates circulated among grain traders on
Tuesday were preliminary forecasts.

* Commodity funds bought a net 9,000 Chicago Board of Trade
soybean contracts on Tuesday, trade sources said. The funds

bought 8,000 in corn and 4,000 in wheat. 

Poor durum crop likely to impact pasta consumers
Poor durum wheat crop likely will mean higher prices or lower quality pasta for consumers



From family dinner tables to fancy restaurants, plates of pasta are likely to be a little pricier in the coming year because of a disappointing durum wheat crop in the northern Plains and Canada.

Durum is ground into the semolina flour used to make pasta products. About half of the nation's durum is produced in North Dakota, where wet weather during spring planting and the fall harvest led to a crop that's more than 4 percent smaller than last year's, and of much poorer quality.

Nationally, the crop is about 8 percent smaller than last year and similar production problems in Canada and Europe brought the global production to its lowest level in 13 years, North Dakota Wheat Commission Marketing Director Jim Peterson said.

"There's not enough (top-end durum) ... for everybody to pursue," he said.
It's led to soaring prices for the best durum, which is bad news for restaurants, particularly family run businesses like The Pasta Shop in Marquette, Michigan, which makes its own noodles. Owner Marc Reilly called the rising price of semolina "a nightmare."......


Concern amongst olive-growers as crops fail




Olive growers in the south of France are reporting crop failures well above average this summer. The fruit is dropping from the tree for unexplained reasons and the Department of Agriculture has stepped in to try and determine the cause.

Olive trees have thrived in the south of France for thousands of years, becoming an absolute necessity in any stereotypical Provençal scene along with lavender fields or vineyards. In the Alpes Maritimes alone, over 4,500 hectares of land is dedicated to the traditional crop, but this summer it is seems the harvest of the aperitif favourite is threatened.

The Department of Agriculture has become concerned about the autumn olive produce for 2014, as startlingly high numbers of olives are falling victim to the chute physiologique phenomenon. The chute is a yearly occurrence whereby physiological factors, usually weather-related, cause olives to shrivel and drop from their tree. It is unknown why weather changes have this effect.

Aside from the volume of plants affected, there is particular concern this year as many olives are falling without shrivelling at all, while others are falling with and without their stalks.

In general these losses are sustained in June and July, before the olive pit is fully formed and harvested. This year, it shows no signs of slowing as we enter August.

According to Maud Cuchet Damiens, the Chambre of Agriculture’s olive specialist, “there is no evidence of the exact cause for this failure be it bacterial, fungal, viral or due to an insect… the phenomenon this year is beyond a normal chute physiologique in terms of intensity and the timeframe.”

Jean-Michel Duriez of the Association Française Interprofessionnelle de l’Olive (Afipol) says the condition can be caused by excess water, improper fertilisation or defects in the olive pit, but most importantly “the olive tree is a fruit tree which, in cases of stress, has a marked tendency to prioritise its own survival over that of its fruit.”

At the end of last year, November 2013, it was noted by the Department of Agriculture that the olives of la Trinité, the area which is reporting a particularly bad crop fail, were behind on qualitative development, with aroma and structure taking longer than usual to progress. They were not available for harvest at that time, delaying the usual time scale.

Olives are harvested from November to February for oil extraction and in autumn to be eaten whole.

At present, leaves and fruit from failing crops are being tested by the Chamber of Agriculture for any discernable causes which may help prevent future losses for the olive growers of the Alpes Maritimes.


Kiss Your Guacamole Good-Bye: Drought-Stricken California Farmers Stop Growing Avocados
But new techniques may help growers squeeze more fruit from fewer acres with less water





When Chipotle warned investors back in March that it might suspend serving guacamole at its restaurants if avocado prices rose because of the California drought, climate change hit home for chip-and-dip lovers, who took to Twitter in distress.

Things have not gotten better since then.

It takes 74 gallons of water to produce one pound of avocados—and drought-stricken California produces 95 percent of the avocados grown in the United States. No wonder Chipotle’s bean counters are worried.

One-third of the state’s avocados are grown in San Diego County, which has some of the highest water prices in the state. In Valley Center, a town that is home to many family farms, avocado growers have seen water rates rise steeply in recent years—so much so that irrigating their groves has become more expensive than the price they get for selling their avocados.

Water isn’t the only challenge. University of California Cooperative Extension farm adviser Gary Bender points out that avocado growers have been hit by a triple whammy: rising fertilizer costs, spikes in water rates, and stagnant wholesale prices owing to competition from cheap imports from Peru, Chile, and Mexico.

This has forced many small farmers to shut off the water and let their groves go dry.

Growers often don’t report their fallow acreage, and the San Diego County Farm Bureau and the California Avocado Commission can’t say how many avocado farms have gone out of production. But by conservative estimates, a couple thousand acres have gone fallow just in Valley Center.

If you drive around here, I could show you thousands of acres of abandoned avocado groves,” said Eric Larson, executive director of the San Diego County Farm Bureau.

Valley Center pays some of California’s highest water rates because of its elevation, which means water must be pumped up to the town.

A handful of farmers have tried switching to wine grapes, but most farms are on rocky hillsides not conducive to growing crops other than avocados.

The bottom line is growers have to find ways to increase production on the same land and produce more fruit per acre,” Larson explained.

That’s where farm advisers like Gary Bender come into the picture. Now retired, the veteran horticulturist is an expert on all things avocado and is sought out by growers desperate to increase crop yields while reducing water use.

Bender has been working with several farmers to experiment with high-density planting that spaces trees nearer to each other and prunes them so they grow up rather than out, as branches that receive more sunlight bear more fruit. Packing more trees on less land also reduces water costs.

Growers who have run trials found that they could increase their yields substantially—double or triple the industry average of 5,000 to 7,000 pounds of fruit per acre.

Farmer Steve Howerzyl grows avocados at two locations in Escondido, a few miles from Valley Center. One 14-acre farm relies on municipal water, which costs about $1,100 per acre-foot of water, compared with the $1,500 per acre-foot that Valley Center farmers pay. On the other farm, he only has access to scarce groundwater, so he has had to cut down trees and he farms only three of 20 acres.

The only way you can compete with cheaper imports and the high cost of water is if you go high-density and get more production per acre," Howerzyl said.

There are few other options for staying in business as water prices rise.

If we can’t get more [for avocados] than our water costs, we will be done in Valley Center, where groundwater is drying up,” Bender said.

In the long term, Larson expects total acreage to fall, but that won’t spell doom for avocado growers or guacamole lovers.

San Diego County may produce more avocados than it does today,” he said, “but on fewer acres, as the growers who do understand the business develop techniques to produce more fruit per are.”

Climate Change Threatens Bees: Even More Evidence
With the threat neonicotinoid use poses to honeybees gaining international attention, researchers are now focused on finding other factors that are contributing to a worrying decline in bees across the globe. Climate change, they say, is certainly to blame, and parasites may be one reason why.




The parasite in question, Nosema ceranae, has long been a pest to honeybee populations. Parasites that invade a hive can spoil food supplies, larvae, and even disrupt wintering, causing bees to abandon their hives in what is called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) - a wide-spread problem that deadly pesticides (neonics) are largely at fault for.

With this invasive parasite exacerbating the CCD problem, researchers are worried that its increasing prevalence could prevent honeybee populations from ever recovering.

A study recently published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B even details how N. ceranae, hailing from Asia, is bullying out bee parasites native to the United Kingdom.

"Our results reveal not only that the exotic parasite is a better competitor than its close relatives, but that its widespread distribution and patterns of prevalence in nature depend on climatic conditions too," researcher Myrsini Natsopoulou said in a recent statement.

It had previously been thought that N. ceranae was not a major threat to global bee populations because the parasite is particularly susceptible to the cold. However, according to researcher Adjunct Reader, this may soon not be the case.

"In the face of rising global temperatures, our findings suggest that it will increase in prevalence and potentially lead to increased honey bee colony losses in Britain," he explained.

This, of course, is not the first time researchers have linked bee decline factors to climate change. Researchers are finding that certain bee populations are declining with the flowers that they have adapted to pollinate, while changing seasonal weather is causing the windows of time when bee workers emerge and specialized flowers bloom to fall out of sync.


Dismantling ski lifts in Europe as world warms up
With temperatures rising faster in the Alps than the rest of the world, alpine countries are working together to adapt to climate change and hope to set an example.





A recent Austrian climate change report found that the country's temperatures had risen twice as fast as the global average since 1880, with the number of sunshine hours in the Alps increasing by 20 per cent.

While this may please holidaymakers or locals enjoying longer summers, it is also likely to cause more landslides and forest fires, affecting the agricultural sector and local economy, the Austrian Assessment Report found.

"Just imagine, you have a relatively narrow valley and in that small space, you have a street, a railway line, maybe power lines and some houses. If a landslide hits there, there will be serious damage," Georg Rebernig, managing director of the Austrian Environment Agency, told AFP.

"Preventing this is what we're trying to do when we talk about a strategy for the Alps," he said ahead of UN climate talks in Lima on December 1-12 meant to pave the way towards a global climate pact next year.

Rebernig's office is part of the C3-Alps project, which groups ministries and research institutes from alpine countries - mainly Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria and France - to discuss ways to tackle climate change.

It is only one of several European initiatives promoting the sharing of information and experiences in the Alps, a mountainous region of around 200,000 square kilometres with a population of 14 million.

"The effects of climate change can be seen and felt ... we have to look ahead, take action," said Karine Siegwart, vice director of the Swiss federal office for the environment, also part of C3-Alps.

"This is a cross-border problem and it requires cross-border collaboration."

A UN report earlier this month warned that Earth was on a likely trajectory for at least 4C warming over pre-industrial times by 2100 - a recipe for worsening drought, flood, rising seas and species extinctions.

Alpine countries are already shifting their focus to adaptation solutions, acknowledging that climate change will not be stopped or turned around anytime soon.

"We have to take climate change very seriously. But we also need local support and to sensitise communities and the population, because the effects of climate change will be felt at a local level," said Siegwart.

Low-lying resorts have long invested in snow cannon to ensure white slopes during the ski season but some have radically changed their marketing strategies -- like Switzerland's Stockhorn ski region, which dismantled its ski lifts to refocus on winter hiking and snowshoeing.

Rather than building flood defences, authorities in northern Austria relocated some 250 households which sat close to the Danube and were badly hit by flood waters in 2002. The move cost more than $A119 million.

"Danger zone plans" are regularly drawn up to identify no-build areas at risk of floods, landslides or erosion, while the mountainous Tirol region has invested some 125 million euros to build avalanche defences over 17.5 kilometres of roads, so they can remain open all year round.

Meanwhile, farmers in Germany are being encouraged to grow crops that are more resistant to heat and dry spells.

Glaciers, the most common symbol of climate change in the mountains, have shrunk by 15 per cent in Austria over the last 15-20 years, according to Andrea Fischer, a glacier expert at the Interdisciplinary Mountain Research Institute in Innsbruck.

Snow levels and flora are moving up mountains and river water is dwindling as glaciers retreat.

But regions and local communities can cope with the changes, Fischer told AFP.

"Mankind is used to always adapting and dealing with difficulties. The idea of a stationary environment is pleasant... but it's not life. Life is about permanent adaptation," she said.

Alpine countries are still drafting strategies to deal with climate change but they can already be a model for others, Rebernig said.

"If you look at other mountain regions, they're often not strong economic regions. The Alps are different," he said.

If local authorities can work together and gather the necessary research early on, "then other regions who didn't have these means will be able to learn from this".


But don't worry!

We have another Talk Fest and the bureaucrats and pen- pushers can tell each other (and the rest of us) that everything is under control.

You can go back to sleep.

Lima climate change talks best chance for a generation, say upbeat diplomats
Hopes rise for global warming deal after US-China carbon commitments inject much-needed momentum into Peru talks

Oxfam banner in Lima, Peru

 An Oxfam banner in Lima on Saturday before the climate change talks. Photograph: Sebastian Casta Eda/AFP/Getty Images



UN climate negotiations opening in Lima on Monday have the best chance in a generation of striking a deal on global warming, diplomats say.

After a 20-year standoff, diplomats and longtime observers of the talks say there is rising optimism that negotiators will be able to secure a deal that will commit all countries to take action against climate change.

The two weeks of talks in Peru are intended to deliver a draft text to be adopted in Paris next year that will commit countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions without compromising the economic development of poor countries.

Diplomats and observers of the UN climate negotiations said recent actions by the US and China had injected much-needed momentum.

I have never felt as optimistic as I have now,” said Tony de Brum, the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands, which are sinking as sea levels rise in the Pacific. “There is an upbeat feeling on the part of everyone that first of all there is an opportunity here and that secondly, we cannot miss it.”

Beyond Lima, there is growing evidence of the dangers of climate change, and of countries’ failure to act.

The UN environment programme warned earlier this month that industrialised countries were falling short of the emissions reductions needed to prevent warming of 2C above pre-industrial levels, the goal set by world leaders. Carbon dioxide emissions are expected to reach a record high of 40bn tonnes in 2014. Meanwhile, 2014 is shaping up to be the hottest on record.

Observers, however, said there was fresh optimism surrounding the Lima talks after the US and China declared on 12 November that they would work together to cut carbon pollution.

Under the deal, China committed to cap its output of carbon pollution by 2030 or earlier and to increase its use of zero emission energy to 20% by 2030. The US agreed to reduce its emissions by between 26% and 28% from their 2005 levels by 2025.

The EU, the next biggest polluter after the US and China, earlier pledged to cut emissions by 40% from their 1990 levels by 2030.

Christiana Figueres, the UN’s top climate official, said the commitments, which have been made well in advance of a March 2015 deadline, had given the talks a boost.

It is hugely encouraging that well ahead of next year’s first-quarter deadline, countries have already been outlining what they intend to contribute to the Paris agreement. This is also a clear sign that countries are determined to find common ground,” she said in a statement.

Todd Stern, the US state department’s climate change envoy, said the US-China deal could push other big polluters such as India, Japan, Brazil and Russia to come forward with their own post-2020 targets. That in turn boosted prospects for a good outcome in Paris.

I think it will spur countries to come forward with their own targets,” he said. “Generally if you are holding stock in the Paris negotiations your stock went up.”

Andrew Steer, the president of the World Resources Institute, an environmental thinktank in Washington, said the US-China deal had changed the atmosphere surrounding the talks.

There is in the air a sense of momentum,” he said. “You’ve already got commitments of about half of all the greenhouse gas emissions that need to be reduced.”

The deal likely to be done in Paris will likely be a hotchpotch of targets such as those announced by the three top carbon polluters, according to an analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

The test for Lima will be the degree to which negotiators can corral those separate action plans from up to 190 countries into a single agreement.

If the talks are to succeed, they will have to come up with a draft text that outlines the structure of that agreement - how to ensure countries commit to deep enough cuts to limit warming to the 2C goal, and how to verify their actions.

The US is pushing for a deal that would avoid setting emissions reduction targets that are legally binding under international law, because that would set up a clash with congress.

Many developing countries, however, insist on legally binding targets. They also argue that only the industrialised countries should have to cut emissions.

The negotiators will also try to ramp up pledges for the Green Climate Fund, which was set up to help developing countries deal with climate change. So far, the fund has raised $9.7bn (£6.2bn) from 22 countries, just short of its initial $10bn target.

The fund is woefully behind its goal of mobilising $100bn a year in public and private finance by 2020.

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