Record Temperatures Shrinking World Grain Harvest
Monthly Drop Equal to One Half of U.S. Wheat Harvest
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update27.htm
Lester R. Brown
Earth Policy Institute
On August 12 at 8:30 a.m., the U.S. Department of Agriculture released its monthly estimate of the world grain harvest, reporting a 32-million-ton drop
from the July estimate. When grain futures markets opened later in the morning, prices of wheat, rice, and corn jumped.
This 32-million-ton drop, equal to half the U.S. wheat harvest, was concentrated in Europe where record-high temperatures have withered crops. The affected region stretched from the United Kingdom and France in the west through the Ukraine in the east. The searing heat damaged crops in virtually every country in Europe.
The soaring temperatures of the past several weeks rewrote the record book.
On August 10, the temperature in London reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38
degrees Celsius)—the first triple-digit reading on record in the United Kingdom. France had 11 consecutive days in August with temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit). In Italy, temperatures reached 41 degrees Celsius (105 degrees Fahrenheit).
The heat wave in Europe started in early summer when Switzerland, situated
in the heart of Europe, experienced the hottest June since recordkeeping
began 140 years ago. In July the heat wave spread across the rest of Europe.
Crops suffered the most in Eastern Europe, which is harvesting its smallest
wheat crop in 30 years. In the Ukraine, the wheat crop, already severely
damaged by winter kill, was reduced further by the heat, plummeting from 21
million tons last year to 5 million tons this year. As a result, the Ukraine, a leading wheat exporter last year, has been forced to import wheat as bread prices threaten to spiral out of control. Romania, which wasparticularly hard hit by heat and drought, is expecting to harvest the smallest wheat crop on record. The Czech Republic is expecting its poorest grain harvest in 25 years.
The prolonged heat wave, which persisted through mid August, also reduced the German grain harvest. The German Farmers Union reports that in southeastern Germany some farmers may lose half of their grain crop.
This reduced estimate of the world grain harvest will expand the world grain
shortfall this year to 82 million tons. With projected world grain consumption of 1,912 million tons exceeding production of 1,830 million tons by 4 percent, the world is engaged in a massive drawdown of grain stocks. (See data at http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update27_data.htm.) With this year’s drawdown, world grain stocks have dropped to the lowest level since the early 1970s. When world grain stocks dropped to a dangerously low level in 1973, world prices of wheat and rice doubled.
As atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels climb higher each year in an unbroken ascent, they are creating a greenhouse effect, raising the earth’s
temperature. Over the last quarter century the earth’s average temperature
has risen 0.7 degrees Celsius or more than 1 degree Fahrenheit.
As temperatures rise, crop-withering heat waves are becoming more and more
common. Last year the grain harvests in India and the United States were hit
hard by high temperatures and drought. This year Europe is bearing the
brunt.
During this life-threatening heat wave Europeans may have felt that the
temperature could not rise much higher, but the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), a group of some 1,500 of the world’s leading climate
scientists, is projecting a rise in average global temperature of somewhere
between 2.5 and 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius) during
this century if we continue with business-as-usual energy policies.
Even if the earth’s temperature increases only a few degrees, as in the low
end of the IPCC projections, we will likely see heat waves far more intense
than anything we can easily imagine. If rising temperatures shrink harvests
and drive up food prices, consumer pressure to reduce the use of fossil fuels will intensify. Indeed, rising food prices could be the first global economic indicator to signal the need for a fundamental shift in energy policy, one that would move the world toward renewable energy sources and away from climate-disrupting fossil fuels.
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For more information on the effect of rising temperatures on crop yields,
see Chapter 1 of Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization
in Trouble, which is online for free downloading at
http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/index.htm. The book will be published on September 4, 2003, after which time the entire contents will be available online.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
Posted by: Paul on August 27, 2003 at 23:17:29