Category: Climate change

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Not an April fool: climate change and agriculture

Mariann Fischer Boel ((EU commissioner for agriculture.)) writes:

The evidence of climate change is compelling. It is happening and it will hit the European Union. As it does so, European agriculture will feel the full force.

Most people understand that global warming will damage the environment. Fewer people understand that it could also land a hammer blow on food production … at a time when we expect the global population to grow from around 7 billion to 9 billion by 2050.

Some regions of the EU could benefit from climate change for a time: for example, yields in some northern zones could increase. On the other hand, the droughts that we foresee would hurt southern European countries which are already running short of water for irrigation. In the EU as a whole we can expect more sudden heatwaves, more sudden storms, more sudden floods. The sheer unpredictability of the weather will make the farmer’s life very difficult.

Question: why publish it on April 1, when the world is looking for hidden agendas?

Meanwhile, SciDev.net reports on a new report from those masters of the data-filled report, the International Food Policy Research Institute. According to SciDev.net:

Agriculture will be “dramatically” affected by climate change, says the paper, published by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). It could also become a potent brake on climate change if the right research and policies are implemented.

But its role has yet to be championed in the build-up to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations to take place in Copenhagen in December, says the paper ‘Agriculture and Climate Change: An Agenda for Negotiation in Copenhagen’.

Question: who is going to be championing agriculture in Copenhagen?

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Nibbles: Adaptation, Vegetables, Wood, Allotment, Earthworms, Salmon, Bees, Malaria, Potatoes, Apples

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Revising the US Plant Hardiness Zone Map

“All gardeners are in zone denial.”

The zones in question are the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Plant Hardiness Zones, which show where different garden species are supposed to do well. Gardeners, of course, think they know better, and will always try to push that envelope.

Anyway, the current version of the Plant Hardiness Zone Map was done way back in 1990, and needed updating. So there’s a new one coming soon. It’s bound to be different, in places very different. A whole new set of recommendations for gardeners to go into denial about.

USDA is not describing what the new map will show, but outside experts say that the trend is for zones to shift northward. “Some places have definitely warmed, although others haven’t changed at all,” says Tony Avent, owner of North Carolina-based Plant Delights Nursery and an advisor for the revision.

You can’t do much with the current map online, but the next version will be downloadable to your GIS. It will also be more sophisticated, with better data, better interpolation and better resolution (800m):

The revised map draws on 30 years of data and uses a complex algorithm to factor in other variables that affect local temperatures, such as altitude and the presence of water bodies.

Will some of the USDA’s clonal repositories (field genebanks) find themselves in the wrong zone?

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Department of Silver Linings, part 387

Yes, sure, climate change will cause sea level rise, which is going to be bad for places like Bangladesh and its rice and shrimp farmers, who will all end up in Dhaka. But. Yep, there might actually be a but. The same climate change is also causing increased flows of water — and, crucially, suspended sediment — from Himalayan glaciers. All you have to do is damn up the water and the silt will build up the land, counteracting the rise in sea level. With any luck, the net result will be stasis. And farmers can keep farming. Until the glaciers run out, that is.