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	Potential Consequences of Disruptions in Agricultural Productivity by UN News / Pew Center on Global Climate Change   March 2011   UN warns of climate change’s potentially dire impact on food security.   The effects of slow-onset climate change are expected to have “potentially catastrophic” impact on food production in developing countries in future, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned today, calling for action to mitigate the adverse consequences.   “Currently the world is focused on dealing with shorter-term climate impacts caused mainly by extreme weather events,” said Alexander Müller, the FAO Assistant-Director General for Natural Resources, in a submission to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).   “This is absolutely necessary, but ‘slow-onset’ impacts are expected to bring deeper changes that challenge the ecosystem services needed for agriculture, with potentially disastrous impacts on food security during the period from 2050 to 2100. Coping with long-term changes after the fact doesn’t make much sense. We must already today support agriculture in the developing world to become more resilient,” said Mr. Müller.   In its submission, FAO outlines steps that governments could consider in climate change negotiations to ensure that food security is not threatened. The agency recommends that food security be used as an indicator of vulnerability to climate change, saying that agriculture systems and the ecosystems it depends on are highly sensitive to climate variability and climate change.   Changes in temperature, precipitation and related outbreaks of pest and diseases can reduce production, with poor people in countries that depend on food imports particularly vulnerable, according to FAO. “If we’re looking to assess vulnerability to climate change, it makes very good sense to look at food security as one important indicator,” said Müller.   FAO suggests that global climate change adaptation mechanisms include greater attention to risks arising from slow-onset impacts of climate change, particularly the effect on food security.   A key measure highlighted in the FAO submission is the need to develop staple food varieties that are better adapted to future climatic conditions. Plant genetic material stored in gene banks should be screened with future requirements in mind, and additional plant genetic resources – including those from wild relatives of food crops – should be collected and studied because of the risk that they may disappear, FAO recommends.   Climate-adapted crops such varieties of major cereals that are resistant to heat, drought, submergence and salty water, the agency suggests, stressing this should be done in ways that respect breeders’ and farmers’ rights, in accordance with the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources.   Mar 2011 (Pew Center on Global Climate Change)   Last week the British Government published a report on The Future of Food and Farming in which the role of a changing climate is appropriately highlighted as a major impediment to maintaining consistent and predictable food supplies for the world’s growing population.   The timing of this report is excellent; food prices have been rising recently and have caused significant hardship for some of the most globally vulnerable populations. These vulnerable populations live in some of the most politically unstable regions, and continued food inflation could exacerbate existing social and economic issues with potentially unpredictable consequences.   Unfortunately as the global climate changes and agricultural productivity shifts, these sort of price rises in basic foods are likely to become more commonplace for the economically sensitive populations in these politically unstable regions – like Southeast Asia, Northern Africa, and the Middle East.   This is not to simply imply that recent increases in food prices were caused by climate change; it is not possible to attribute a single event such as this latest spike in food prices to the long-term trends we expect to experience from our changing climate. It is, however, instructive to identify that the sort of impacts that we expect from climate change can have serious social and political implications.   Recent work shows that several of the world"s most important crops could be near climactic thresholds that will seriously impair agricultural yields.   Several of these crops (like corn, rice, soybeans and wheat - the source of 75% of global calorie consumption) appear to be sensitive to increases in temperature variation, especially to the occurrence of a particularly hot day in the middle of the growing season. Increases in temperature variation and the prevalence of what are historically unusually hot days is exactly what our best models of the future climate predict.   Even if global yields are able to remain fairly constant due to human adaptation to the shifting regions of agricultural productivity (e.g., northward from the U.S. Plains to Canada and Siberia), the temporary economic dislocation will certainly be difficult for today"s farmers and for the people who are dependent on the food that they produce.   Other research suggests that increasing temperatures could cause major difficulties for farmers in Southeast Asia who produce a large fraction of global rice output, an important staple in the region.   This research recognizes that the human body simply cannot perform the hard manual labor (like that needed to tend to rice paddies) at the temperatures climate models predict. By 2050, these temperatures are expected to be commonplace for the region – potentially resulting in a huge loss of agricultural output.   While agricultural contributions to overall GDP in the rich world may seem relatively minor, it is important to remember that GDP is only a measure of economic activity and not a measure of well-being. The well-being that food provides is not necessarily proportionate to its market price.   A common example used to illustrate this point is a comparison of the price of diamonds to the price of water. Water is much less expensive but is an absolute necessity. Staple foods are similar.   If the price of diamonds increases, people (in aggregate) can choose to purchase less. If the price of water or food increases however, there is little flexibility (elasticity, in economic terms) in terms of how much less people can choose to buy.   If food prices rise in the rich world, consumers will spend more of their income on food and forgo other consumption options. In developing nations this trade-off may not be possible – creating a situation where political unrest could become more likely. According to World Bank data, over 50% of the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day.   Obviously for these populations, even small increases in the prices of staples can cause real difficulties since a large fraction of their income is already spent on food. Some of the regions that have the highest concentrations of the global poor are also the regions that tend to be among the most politically volatile.   Though it is unlikely that food prices would directly cause conflict or instability in these regions, it is more likely that the stress caused by higher (or more volatile) food prices will worsen existing socio-economic pressures.   The resulting consequences will be difficult to predict; and by their nature will create difficulties in creating an effective adaptive response. Though it will likely never be clear which future conflicts could have been avoided in the absence of climate change, we do know that proactive policy effort taken now can reduce the eventual impact of future food price pressures.   * Article by Russell Meyer, Senior Fellow for Economics and Policy at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Visit the related web page
	Small Farms can help to solve the Food Crisis by Prabhu Pingali Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation   It’s déjà vu! We were here before, just two years ago. Remember the food crisis of 2008, and the projections of the number of hungry worldwide topping a billion people? We, the global community, promised we would not let this happen again.   The G-20 committed to providing $22 billion to support the revitalization of developing-country agriculture. The Global Agriculture & Food Security Program (GAFSP) was established last year to enhance food productivity in the poorest countries. Unfortunately, across the board pledges were only partially met. When food prices dropped, so did the sense of urgency.   High food prices are back—hitting an all-time high in January since the index was established in 1990—and once again the talk has returned to what we should do. Chronically low productivity and the vagaries of extreme climatic events are helping contribute to an increasingly erratic global food supply system.   While it’s relatively easy for us in the developed world to withstand these price shocks, the world’s poor cannot afford such volatility. But we don’t have to be here; we can do a lot better.   History has shown us that dramatic declines in hunger and poverty have occurred when small farmers have been galvanized to meet food deficits. Small farmers’ productivity growth made the world’s most populous countries, China and India, self-sufficient in food and conquered the specter of famine. Small farms are the best pathway for getting us out of this and future food crises.   It will require our collective and concerted efforts to empower small farmers to sustainably get us to the solution. Here are discreet actions that the global community and national governments should take to ensure that small farmers are part of the solution:   1.Deliver on the pledges made at L’Aquila: The G-20 countries should immediately meet their L’Aquila commitments made in 2009 for enhancing developing country food security. Right now, we estimate that only about a quarter of those commitments have been delivered. The promised funds are urgently needed for investing in agriculture development in the least developed countries.   2.Focus on the long term in setting agriculture and trade policy: Erratic swings in policy, such as rice export bans imposed by several Asian countries during the last crisis, create uncertainty for farmer investment in productivity improvement. Stable price and trade policies promote long-term market participation by smallholders.   3.Give farmers the freedom of technology choice: Developing country farmers are frequently talked down to in terms of which technologies are appropriate for them. Farmers are quite capable of making the choice on their own; what they want is a wide set of options they can choose from.   4.Accelerate public investment in rural infrastructure: Improved road and transport infrastructure allows for improved flow of inputs and outputs, and it also leads to better transmission of prices and market signals to the hinterlands. Investments in improving the reach and access to mobile phones can also transform the way farmers connect to markets and access information about improved farming practices and weather conditions.   5.Explore options for international governance of food markets: While domestic productivity improvement will definitely contribute to enhancing food supplies, food price volatility ought to also be dealt with at an international level. Significant work needs to be done to identify appropriate mechanisms for increasing transparency in the operation of commodity futures markets. A debate is also needed, and eventually policies on establishing reliable international or regional grain reserves. Visit the related web page
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