The Rising Cost of Bread Will be a Harbinger for Climate Change

(Bloomberg) -- Climate change-induced droughts threaten to affect more than half of the world’s wheat fields, prompting scientists to warn of potential market upheavals and political unrest.

That’s the conclusion of new peer-reviewed research published in the journal Science Advances. The grain that accounts for a fifth of mankind’s daily calories will be harder to grow because of more severe and prolonged water shortages. Their projections show that 60% of current wheat growing areas could face droughts by the end of the century, if climate change isn’t mitigated, compared with 15% today. 

“These developments may increase food insecurity and, consequently, political instability and migration,” wrote researchers from organizations including the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria. Even keeping the Earth’s rising temperatures within limits prescribed by the Paris Agreement will double the area of cultivation under threat, they wrote.

The findings underscore how shifting weather patterns will upend the fortunes of farmers worldwide, enriching some and depressing yields for others. Prolonged drought fried grain crops in eastern Australia this year, forcing the country, usually the biggest wheat exporter in the Southern Hemisphere, to make a rare import of Canadian grain.  

Global warming will require economies to find new ways to feed themselves with cultivation migrating to areas with more suitable conditions for growing, the researchers said. 

“If only one country or region experiences a drought there is less impact,” wrote lead authors Miroslav Trnka, a professor at Mendel University in the Czech Republic, and Song Feng from the University of Arkansas. “If multiple regions are however affected simultaneously, it can affect global production and food prices, and lead to food insecurity.”

The world’s top wheat exporters in the EU, Russia and U.S. face severe water scarcity while farmers in South America may only be ``marginally effected,’’ according to the study. 

Wheat is different than other grain crops because it generally isn’t irrigated, instead relying on natural rain patterns to grow. The researchers used more than two dozen climate and hydrological models to reach their conclusions.

The study “contributes substantially to the neglected area of climate extremes in agriculture, as it brings new data to light on how likely the shocks caused by drought might be in near future,” wrote Petr Havlik, a researcher at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, who contributed to the report.

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.