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Final Essay

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Two widely fought over and controversial issues that are often the cause of many political battles is the shortage of food resources and climate change. Thus it is important to look at how these two issues are linked together and the consequence one can have on another. In specific, take a look at the impact of climate change on agriculture. One theory is that climate change will have a presumably overall positive impact on agriculture. Climate change brings with it vast changes in temperature, these changes could greatly affect the agricultural system. Everything in the environment is designed to function at its optimal level under optimal conditions. This is in particular to crop yield all around the world, explaining why some products …show more content…

In Canada, the temperature has increased by 1.3°C which has resulted in greater precipitation levels, specifically 12% increase all over Canada (Government of Canada, 2014). This increase in temperature and precipitation is significant because they are important abiotic factors that determine the outcome of crop quality and yield. Crop yield refers to the amount of harvest that can be produced per hectare of given land (Bullis, 2014). For example, wheat, which is the number one grown crop in Canada requires several conditions in order for the crop to be grown properly, such as between 420 and 480mm of water (Government of Alberta, 2011). If this condition is not met it could prove for great drawbacks in wheat production. Other possible areas of concern due to climate change with respect to crop yield include high heat conditions causing damage to crops and soil erosion. One of the ways in which this can happen is from having warmer winters, which will decrease the amount of protective snow cover and make the soil more susceptible to erosion (Government of Canada, 2014). This decrease in soil quality has led Canada to see a decrease in land for agricultural purposes to 7.3% (Statistics Canada, 2014). Looking at the issue on a more global scale, the U.N. reports that the world’s largest crops such as corn, wheat and rice could decrease harvest …show more content…

Climate change can greatly change the supply of produce that is available to consumers due to droughts and extreme weather conditions a fore mentioned. This reduction will evidently lead suppliers to hike the prices of goods, with higher prices, consumption levels decrease causing the rise of many health factors in humans (Adams et al., 1998). Statistics Canada outlined the decrease in household spending on food between 1969 and 2009 with increasing food prices annually by 4.3%, amounting to a fall from 18.7% to 10.2% respectively (Davison, 2011). Likewise, as seen in Table 2, fragile countries as in those that lack the tools for a stable economy and industrial infrastructure have the greatest percentage of expenditure on food compared to developing countries (Brinkman & Hendrix, 2011). This point helps to shape the importance of climate change on agriculture in Canada as well as globally as the changes in growing patterns will affect spending patterns of global citizens. Furthermore, with fewer resources to provide for the growing population, civil conflicts over limited supplies are bound to occur. To prove this fact even further, it is shown that many countries that have a lack of resources providing for poor nutrition and health are seen to be greatly

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Additionally, this article humanizes farmers such as Jenny Schmidt who often get villainized in the industry. On the other hand, The Climate Crisis at the End of Our Fork, by Anna Lappe focuses on the various techniques the author finds wrong with modern day farming. Unlike Jenkins, she advocates for sustainability in a way that rejects artificial farming practices, such as GMOs. Lappe also pushes for an increase in local farms who use organic practices. She believes this would make crops better fit to sustain natural disasters such as droughts, and be overall better for the

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Corn has become abundant. The use synthetic nitrogen fertilizer is a contribution to the global warming due to the farming and this also pollutes the water for the

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In the article ‘The Climate Crisis at the End of our Fork’ Anna Lappe, co-founder of the Small Planet Institute, has drawn on research to determine that a “full eighteen percent of the worlds global warming effect is associated with ‘land use changes’” (Lappe 753) such as livestock emissions and the destruction of rainforests. According to Lappe, these changes in land are used for livestock and pastures for cattle. This poor management of land significantly impacts climate change which produces food for consumers. Therefore, Lappe suggests that people look more closely at what they eat and where it comes from.

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An increase in the climate could offset any economic benefits that supporters discuss. Over the next several decades’ parts of the U.S. could become semi-permanent drought, with rain that occurs alongside extreme events with heavy floods according to Hansen. These conditions would make farming extremely difficult resulting in food prices skyrocketing. If Hansen’s predictions are true then this could result in a loss of a great amount of jobs and could create more economic losses than what will be gained

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As shown in both figures above, climate change will have a massive impact on China in the next few years. In Figure 1, China is in an orange colour indicating there will be a serious change in the weather and food production strategies. Ways of decreasing the effects climate change can include transitioning to a new, low-carbon economy to avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change and sustainably using materials. Increasing demand for food globally mainly affects China greatly with their rapid population growth (currently at 1.4 billion people). Securing enough food for its people, however, will be even more difficult for China in the years ahead due to a number of factors, including increased competition from a growing global population, the reduction of the country’s agricultural work force as millions of Chinese farmers move to the cities, and the changing diets of its population as Chinese become more

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The results of natural disasters were described by the Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters as “[for every] 10 people [who] were killed; 100 people were affected” (McMichael et al. 92). Changes in climatic conditions have an indirect effect on the health of human populations, as they influence food and water security (McMichael “Global Environmental,” 2). The quality and availability of these two resources are of the utmost importance as they are necessary for human survival. Agricultural systems are heavily impacted by shifts in environmental conditions, such as deviations in temperature, amount of rainfall, and chemical composition. Rising temperatures generally have a negative outcome on crops, decreasing their nutritional value and the quantity produced.

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Drought Conditions make food to decrease. The price of foodstuff has been increasing. People cannot pay their taxes or debts. They have to sell their land. People 's burden is increasing.

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For example, changes in temperature and precipitation, as well as droughts and floods, will affect agricultural yields and production. (USDA, 2015) In some regions of the world, these impacts may compromise food security and threaten human health through malnutrition, the spread of infectious diseases, and food poisoning. The worst of these effects are projected to occur in developing countries, among vulnerable populations.

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1321 Words | 6 Pages

Remember the revolutions that swept the Middle East in 2011, they all began with people in the street upset over the price of food. What’s more many of the world's top agricultural experts believe that this is just the tip of the iceberg unless we figure out new strategies to deal with global food security. We may be entering a new and dangerous phase of human history where food water and energy shortages threaten not only worse poverty but also civic unrest and international conflict. There are a number of reasons for this alarm, the first reason is that in most years we produce only just enough food to cover uses. in fact in six of the last 11 years we actually consumed slightly more food then we produced and the buffer we take from one year to the next has been steadily falling so our system already seems pretty fragile ,but it's when we look into the future that things grow very dire indeed.

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The impact of climate change is being felt throughout the world; however, the situation is more pronounced in developing countries because many households, social groups and regions have a limited capacity to adapt to climate variability and change (UNFCCC, 2007; IPCC 2007). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007:6) defined climate change as any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity. The (UNFCCC 2007) espoused that agricultural production on the African continent relies primarily on rainfall. As such, any interruption in rainfall pattern and intensity will adversely affect the poor, predominantly the smallholder farmers (ibid).

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