ALM UNDP

Summary:

Climate Change to Increase Malnutrition, Raise Food Prices, and Lower Crop Yields

New IFPRI Report Estimates US$7.1-7.3 Billion/Year Needed for Agricultural Adaptation

Climate Change: Impact on Agriculture and Costs of Adaptation
International Food Policy Research Institute
Washington, D.C.
September 2009
Gerald C. Nelson, Mark W. Rosegrant, Jawoo Koo, Richard Robertson, Timothy Sulser, Tingju Zhu, Claudia Ringler, Siwa Msangi, Amanda Palazzo, Miroslav Batka, Marilia Magalhaes, Rowena Valmonte-Santos, Mandy Ewing, and David Lee.

Summary

A new report from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) examines the interplay between climate change, agriculture, and food security and provides projections for climate change's impact on crop production, food prices, and malnutrition.

For more information: Climate Change: Impact on Agriculture and Costs of Adaptation.

The report projects that in 2050, there will be 25 million additional malnourished children, a 90% increase in wheat prices, and a 15% decline in irrigated rice yields in developing countries, all compared to a scenario without climate change. Critically, agricultural productivity investments of US$7.1-7.3 billion are essential to avoid these negative impacts.

The report is the first to combine detailed modeling of crop growth under climate change with insights from an extremely detailed global agriculture model, and it also uses two climate scenarios to simulate future climate. For additional projections on crop yields, food prices, and human well-being effects, as well as detailed policy prescriptions, visit the report's webpage.

The Challenge

"The unimpeded growth of greenhouse gas emissions is raising the earth’s temperature. The consequences include melting glaciers, more precipitation, more and more extreme weather events, and shifting seasons. The accelerating pace of climate change, combined with global population and income growth, threatens food security everywhere.

Agriculture is extremely vulnerable to climate change. Higher temperatures eventually reduce yields of desirable crops while encouraging weed and pest proliferation. Changes in precipitation patterns increase the likelihood of short-run crop failures and long-run production declines. Although there will be gains in some crops in some regions of the world, the overall impacts of climate change on agriculture are expected to be negative, threatening global food security.

Populations in the developing world, which are already vulnerable and food insecure, are likely to be the most seriously affected. In 2005, nearly half of the economically active population in developing countries 2.5 billion people relied on agriculture for its livelihood. Today, 75 percent of the world’s poor live in rural areas.

This Food Policy Report presents research results that quantify the climate-change impacts mentioned above, assesses the consequences for food security, and estimates the investments that would offset the negative consequences for human well-being."

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