 |
|
Intensified research effort yields climate-resilient agriculture to blunt impact of global warming
December 05, 2006In reporting new forecasts of the devastating impact of climate change on food production in some of the globe's poorest regions, the world's largest alliance of international agricultural research centers today announced it is embarking on a new effort to intensify and streamline research to reduce developing countries' vulnerability to climate change caused by global warming.
The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) (www.cgiar.org), in consultation with the global environmental change science community, is refining a comprehensive climate change agenda that is already generating climate-resilient innovations, including crops bred to withstand heat, salt, submergence or waterlogging, and drought, and more efficient farming techniques to help poor farmers better use increasingly scarce water and fragile soil. Researchers are also focusing on boosting agriculture's role in reducing climate-altering greenhouse gases. (See attached descriptions of new crops and approaches.)
"The impacts of climate change on agriculture will add significantly to the development challenges of reducing poverty and ensuring sufficient food production for a growing population," said Dr. Robert S. Zeigler, Director General of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), a CGIAR-supported research center. "The livelihoods of billions of people in developing countries, particularly those in the tropics, will be severely challenged as crop yields decline due to shorter growing seasons."
"Anticipating and planning for climate change is imperative if farmers in poor countries are to avert forecast declines in yields of the world's most important food crops," said Dr. Louis V. Verchot, a climate change scientist with the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), a CGIAR-supported research center. "Yet, adaptation is not a substitute for reducing new and removing existing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere-our only long-term option."
Adding urgency to the researchers' action plan is a new study that forecasts a 51 percent decrease by 2050 in the amount of India's most favorable wheat-growing land. According to a study from one of the research centers, Can Wheat Beat the Heat", sustained periods of hotter, drier weather will dramatically shrink India's breadbasket and diminish yields, placing at least 200 million people at greater risk of hunger.
As a result of rising temperatures, the climatic conditions best suited to wheat growing will shift away from the tropics-where most of the world's poorest countries are situated-toward the poles and to higher elevations. According to the study, North American wheat growers will be able to farm new lands as far as 65 degrees north, 10 degrees beyond their current planting limit. In North America, wheat growing would extend from its current limit - extending from Ketchikan, Alaska in the West to Cape Harrison, Labrador in the East - to less than two degrees beneath the Arctic Circle. In Eurasia, much of Siberia would become farmland. While poor tropical countries' capacity for food production will diminish, developed countries-most of which are located far from the equator-will, in many cases, experience an increase in productive capacity as land that was previously frost-bound opens to cultivation.
"Developing countries, which are already home to most of the world's poor and malnourished people and have contributed relatively little to the causes of global warming, are going to bear the brunt of climate change and suffer most from its negative consequences," said Dr. Verchot of the World Agroforestry Centre.
Meanwhile, a second study finds that projected increases in temperature and changes in rainfall patterns will decrease growing periods by more than 20 percent in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. According to the findings in CGIAR's research report Mapping Climate Vulnerability and Poverty in Africa, Africans living in the continent's poorest countries are at greatest risk from environments that will become even less hospitable to agriculture. Most vulnerable of all are farming families in East and Central Africa, including Rwanda, Burundi, Eritrea, and Ethiopia as well as Chad and Niger.
The authors' findings were based on analysis that examined such factors as land degradation, renewable water supply, infant mortality, crop suitability, disease prevalence, governance, and public health.
"Poor countries are overwhelmingly dependent on natural resources, and, given their limited financial or institutional ability to adapt to profound change, they are severely at risk," said Dr. Zeigler, speaking on behalf of the 15 research centers supported by the CGIAR. "Helping poor farmers adapt to climate change will require a concerted international effort to improve crops, techniques of cultivation, and soil and water management."
"The task ahead may well prove bigger and more complex than what we faced at the outset of the Green Revolution," Dr. Zeigler added. "To feed a growing population, food production must be doubled over the next 25 years, but now poor countries must do so in harsh environments that climate change has rendered far less suitable to agriculture."
Main approaches in the new climate change agenda outlined by the research centers include the following:
Developing climate-ready crops
Researchers are developing more reliable varieties of food crops capable of withstanding increased temperatures, drought, and flooding. Heat-resistant cereals currently under development will provide greater yield reliability, especially in the tropics and subtropics, where many crops are grown at or near their thermal optimum, and where a 1 degree Celsius increase in temperatures during the growing season can result in a decline in yields of up to 10 percent. Under these conditions, photosynthesis slows or even ceases altogether, pollination is prevented, and dehydration sets in.
With increased rainfall and flooding forecast in many parts of Asia, new breeds of rice benefiting from a trait that allows the plant to survive prolonged periods of submergence are already helping farmers on millions of hectares in India and Bangladesh. Researchers are also looking to boost rice yields from a shrinking land base by reconfiguring the plant's photosynthetic engine so that it more efficiently converts solar power and atmospheric carbon into grain.
For drought-prone regions like Southern Africa, researchers using an innovative molecular approach to breeding have made progress in developing maize that withstands prolonged dry periods and infertile soils. This and other drought-related work, including research that allows crops to be "programmed" so they mature at the time of year when conditions are most likely to be favorable for grain development, regardless of when they are planted, is beginning to have an impact in farmers' fields.
Plant breeders will continue to develop new varieties that can better tolerate the impacts of climate change, but there are limits to the ability of new varieties to counteract the effects of heat, drought, and submergence.
"Adaptation does not guarantee that farming will be able to continue in an area, or if it does, that farmer income will remain unchanged," said Dr. Zeigler. "Some adaptation will involve shifting production from one location to another.\\\
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
"Anticipating and planning for climate change is imperative if farmers in poor countries are to avert forecast declines in yields of the world's most important food crops," said Dr. Louis V. Verchot, a climate change scientist with the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), a CGIAR-supported research center. "Yet, adaptation is not a substitute for reducing new and removing existing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere-our only long-term option."
Adding urgency to the researchers' action plan is a new study that forecasts a 51 percent decrease by 2050 in the amount of India's most favorable wheat-growing land. According to a study from one of the research centers, Can Wheat Beat the Heat", sustained periods of hotter, drier weather will dramatically shrink India's breadbasket and diminish yields, placing at least 200 million people at greater risk of hunger.
As a result of rising temperatures, the climatic conditions best suited to wheat growing will shift away from the tropics-where most of the world's poorest countries are situated-toward the poles and to higher elevations. According to the study, North American wheat growers will be able to farm new lands as far as 65 degrees north, 10 degrees beyond their current planting limit. In North America, wheat growing would extend from its current limit - extending from Ketchikan, Alaska in the West to Cape Harrison, Labrador in the East - to less than two degrees beneath the Arctic Circle. In Eurasia, much of Siberia would become farmland. While poor tropical countries' capacity for food production will diminish, developed countries-most of which are located far from the equator-will, in many cases, experience an increase in productive capacity as land that was previously frost-bound opens to cultivation.
"Developing countries, which are already home to most of the world's poor and malnourished people and have contributed relatively little to the causes of global warming, are going to bear the brunt of climate change and suffer most from its negative consequences," said Dr. Verchot of the World Agroforestry Centre.
Meanwhile, a second study finds that projected increases in temperature and changes in rainfall patterns will decrease growing periods by more than 20 percent in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. According to the findings in CGIAR's research report Mapping Climate Vulnerability and Poverty in Africa, Africans living in the continent's poorest countries are at greatest risk from environments that will become even less hospitable to agriculture. Most vulnerable of all are farming families in East and Central Africa, including Rwanda, Burundi, Eritrea, and Ethiopia as well as Chad and Niger.
The authors' findings were based on analysis that examined such factors as land degradation, renewable water supply, infant mortality, crop suitability, disease prevalence, governance, and public health.
"Poor countries are overwhelmingly dependent on natural resources, and, given their limited financial or institutional ability to adapt to profound change, they are severely at risk," said Dr. Zeigler, speaking on behalf of the 15 research centers supported by the CGIAR. "Helping poor farmers adapt to climate change will require a concerted international effort to improve crops, techniques of cultivation, and soil and water management."
"The task ahead may well prove bigger and more complex than what we faced at the outset of the Green Revolution," Dr. Zeigler added. "To feed a growing population, food production must be doubled over the next 25 years, but now poor countries must do so in harsh environments that climate change has rendered far less suitable to agriculture."
Main approaches in the new climate change agenda outlined by the research centers include the following:
Developing climate-ready crops
Researchers are developing more reliable varieties of food crops capable of withstanding increased temperatures, drought, and flooding. Heat-resistant cereals currently under development will provide greater yield reliability, especially in the tropics and subtropics, where many crops are grown at or near their thermal optimum, and where a 1 degree Celsius increase in temperatures during the growing season can result in a decline in yields of up to 10 percent. Under these conditions, photosynthesis slows or even ceases altogether, pollination is prevented, and dehydration sets in.
With increased rainfall and flooding forecast in many parts of Asia, new breeds of rice benefiting from a trait that allows the plant to survive prolonged periods of submergence are already helping farmers on millions of hectares in India and Bangladesh. Researchers are also looking to boost rice yields from a shrinking land base by reconfiguring the plant's photosynthetic engine so that it more efficiently converts solar power and atmospheric carbon into grain.
For drought-prone regions like Southern Africa, researchers using an innovative molecular approach to breeding have made progress in developing maize that withstands prolonged dry periods and infertile soils. This and other drought-related work, including research that allows crops to be "programmed" so they mature at the time of year when conditions are most likely to be favorable for grain development, regardless of when they are planted, is beginning to have an impact in farmers' fields.
Plant breeders will continue to develop new varieties that can better tolerate the impacts of climate change, but there are limits to the ability of new varieties to counteract the effects of heat, drought, and submergence.
"Adaptation does not guarantee that farming will be able to continue in an area, or if it does, that farmer income will remain unchanged," said Dr. Zeigler. "Some adaptation will involve shifting production from one location to another.\\\
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
Global Warming Current Events and Global Warming News RSSGas from the past gives scientists new insights into climate and the oceans
In recent years, public discussion of climate change has included concerns that increased levels of carbon dioxide will contribute to global warming, which in turn may change the circulation in the earth's oceans, with potentially disastrous consequences.
Researchers document world's mammals in crisis
From majestic African elephants to tiny and often unappreciated rodents, mammals on Earth are in a state of crisis. One in four mammal species on Earth is being pushed to extinction, according to the Global Mammal Assessment, the most comprehensive assessment of the world's mammals.
Are we trading energy conservation for toxic air emissions?
A team of Yale scientists has found that certain countries and some U.S. states stand to benefit from the use of compact fluorescent lighting more than others in the fight against global warming. Some places may even produce more mercury emissions by switching from incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent lighting.
Scientist proposes explanation for puzzling property of night-shining clouds at the edge of space
An explanation for a strange property of noctilucent clouds--thin, wispy clouds hovering at the edge of space at 85 km altitude--has been proposed by an experimental plasma physicist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), possibly laying to rest a decades-long mystery.
Researchers find animal with ability to survive climate change
Queen's researchers have found that the main source of food for many fish - including cod - in the North Atlantic appears to adapt in order to survive climate change.
IMPACTS: On the Threshold of Abrupt Climate Changes
Abrupt climate change is a potential menace that hasn't received much attention. That's about to change. Through its Climate Change Prediction Program, the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research (OBER) recently launched IMPACTS - Investigation of the Magnitudes and Probabilities of Abrupt Climate Transitions - a program led by William Collins of Berkeley Lab's Earth Sciences Division (ESD) that brings together six national laboratories to attack the problem of abrupt climate change, or ACC.
Scientists working to protect NI from Bird Flu
Queen's scientists are involved in two international projects aimed to protect Northern Ireland's agri-food industry from Bird Flu and African Swine Fever, a disease which kills pigs.
Curbing coal emissions alone might avert climate danger, say researchers
An ongoing rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels might be kept below harmful levels if emissions from coal are phased out within the next few decades, say researchers.
Luck gave dinosaurs their edge
T. rex and Triceratops: In the popular imagination, dinosaurs are extraordinary reptiles that ruled the world for over 160 million years. But Steve Brusatte, a doctoral student at Columbia University who is an affiliate of the American Museum of Natural History, and colleagues are challenging this idea with new fossil data and math.
Brown-led research team proposes new link to tropical African climate
he Lake Tanganyika area, in southeast Africa, is home to nearly 130 million people living in four countries that bound the lake, the second deepest on Earth. Scientists have known that the region experiences dramatic wet and dry spells, and that rainfall profoundly affects the area's people, who depend on it for agriculture, drinking water and hydroelectric power.
More Global Warming Current Events and Global Warming News Articles
 | Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, Updated and Expanded Edition by S. Fred Singer, Dennis T. Avery In this New York Times bestseller, authors Singer and Avery present the compelling concept that global temperatures have been rising mostly or entirely because of a natural cycle. Using historic data from two millennia of recorded history combined with natural physical records, the authors argue that the 1,500 year solar-driven cycle that has always controlled the earth's climate remains the... |
 | The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism) by Christopher C. Horner This latest installment in the P.I.G. series provides a provocative, entertaining, and well-documented expose of some of the most shamelessly politicized pseudo-science we are likely to see in our relatively cool... |
 | Global Warming: The Complete Briefing by John Houghton John Houghton explores the scientific basis of global warming and the likely impacts of climate change on human society in this comprehensive guide to the subject. He then addresses the action that could be taken by governments, industry and individuals to mitigate the effects of global warming. Previous Edition Hb (1997): 0-521-62089-9 Previous Edition Pb (1997):... |
 | Down-to-Earth Guide To Global Warming by Laurie David and Cambria Gordon The comprehensive resource readers can look to for understanding why global warming happens and the ways it impacts our planet, and how we can work together to stop it. Kids and adults alike can help prevent the full consequences of global warming - we all have a part to play'. By Laurie David and Cambria... |
 | The Discovery of Global Warming, revised and expanded edition (New Histories of Science, Technology, and Medicine) by Spencer R. Weart The award-winning book is now revised and expanded. In 2001 an international panel of distinguished climate scientists announced that the world was warming at a rate without precedent during at least the last ten millennia, and that warming was caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases from human activity. The story of how scientists reached that conclusion—by way of unexpected twists and... |
 | Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast by David Archer Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast is a comprehensive introduction to all aspects of global warming. Written in an accessible style, this important book examines the processes of climate change and climate stability, from the distant past to the distant future. Examining the greenhouse effect, the carbon cycle, and what the future may hold for global climate, this text draws on a... |
 | The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook: 77 Essential Skills To Stop Climate Change by David de Rothschild The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook is the official companion volume to the Live Earth concerts, 24 hours of nonstop concerts broadcast from around the world on July 7, 2007. The book presents 77 essential skills for stopping climate change--and for living through it. It is a fun, compelling, and sly deconstruction of a survival guide (think Boy Scouts of America crossed with... |
 | Encyclopedia of Global Warming and Climate Change The Encyclopedia of Global Warming and Climate Change helps readers learn about the astonishingly intricate processes that make ours the only planet known to be habitable. These three volumes include more than 750 articles that explore major topics related to global warming and climate change-ranging geographically from the North Pole to the South Pole, and thematically from social effects to... |
| Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) by Mark Maslin Global warming is arguably the most critical and controversial issue facing the world in the twenty-first century, one that will affect every living creature on the planet. It is also an extraordinarily complex problem, which everyone needs to understand as clearly and completely as possible. This Very Short Introduction provides a concise and accessible explanation of the key aspects of global... | |
 | This Is My Planet: The Kids' Guide to Global Warming by Jan Thornhill Reports of global warming’s catastrophic effects are everywhere: in newspapers, on the nightly news, even on movie screens. The subject can be so overwhelming that young people are often left with the thought, What can I do? In This Is My Planet, Jan Thornhill gives young readers the tools they need to live their own lives more ecologically — and ultimately, to improve the life of the planet.... |
| © 2008 BrightSurf.com |