Climate change poses an extreme threat to food production in the coming years

Heatwaves, already increasing due to climate change, could put the agricultural sector at “extreme risk” by 2045 in some 60 countries that account for almost three-quarters of food production, according to an analysis published today.

“Heat stress”, which combines temperature levels and the difficulty of working outdoors under certain climatic conditions, has already reached this level of “extreme risk” in 20 countries, including India – a global agricultural giant – according to the study prepared by the British risk analysis company Verisk Maplecroft.

Future projections, based on a scenario of global warming of 2°C compared to pre-industrial times by 2045, show that by that date 64 countries, currently representing 71% of global food production, will be affected by it the “extreme risk”.

Among them, large producers of agricultural products – consistently India, but also China, Brazil and the United States.

“With rising global temperatures and heat stress we will see production affected in more temperate countries,” explains Will Nicholls, head of climate and resilience at Verisk Maplecroft.

“There’s a really big concern that people in rural areas, who understandably depend heavily on agriculture, are going to be much more vulnerable to these heat waves from now on,” Nicholls told AFP.

India, which had 12% of global food production in 2020, is the only major agricultural power already in the “extreme risk” category, so it is overly dependent on a rich agricultural workforce.

Extreme climatic conditions could therefore have consequences on productivity and indirectly affect the economic balances of specific countries, triggering crises with possible consequences for socio-political stability.

In projections for 2045, nine of the 10 countries most at risk are in Africa, including Ghana, the world’s second largest cocoa producer.

Among the 20 most threatened countries are also large Asian rice producers, Cambodia, Thailand or Vietnam. In the latter country, many farmers already work at night in the rice fields to avoid extreme heat, the report’s authors note.

In countries that are at risk but have a large area, such as the United States or China, areas are affected differently.

Seven European countries are also among the 10 countries expected to see the largest proportional increase in risk by 2045.

RES-EMP

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