Climate change could trigger a 10 percent drop in China's grain harvest over the next 20 years, threatening the country's food security, a leading agriculture expert warned in comments published Friday.
Tang Huajun, deputy dean of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, warned crop production could fall by five to 10 percent by 2030 if climate change continues unchecked, in an interview with the official China Daily.
"The output of the country's three main foods -- rice, wheat and corn -- may suffer a 37 percent decline in the latter part of this century if the government fails to take effective measures to address the impact of climate change," Tang was quoted as saying.
[...]
Tang is the chief scientist for a government project launched in September to study the impact of climate change on China's grain production over the past 20 years at 11 research stations in the north and south of the country.
"Agriculture has been the worst hit by climate change and some negative effects have become more obvious due to rising temperatures and water shortages over the past 10 years," Tang said.
Drought is the biggest threat to China's grain harvest, causing an annual average loss of 15 to 25 million tonnes from 1995 to 2005, or four to eight percent of the country's annual output, Tang said.
Noel. I am going to get to that 'How Bad Can It Get' post relatively soon. Maybe over Tday weekend. That said, I suspect 10% may be a little too conservative. Reason being that precipitation change is poorly predicted at this point, but is wildly different depending on the temperature range in models and almost always more negative for Australia, Central Asia and Africa.
No comments:
Post a Comment