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In the World's Breadbasket, Climate Change Feeds Worry
CHICAGO - It can't happen here, can it?
A field of corn is shown from the motorcade carrying U.S. President Barack Obama in between stops near Monona, Iowa, August 16, 2011. (Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed)
The United States, the breadbasket and supplier of last resort for a hungry world, has been such an amazing food producer in the last half-century that most Americans take for granted annual bounteous harvests of grain, meat, dairy, fruits, vegetables and other crops.
When horrific images of drought or famine in Africa, Asia or other regions land in American media, America is usually first in line with food aid shipments, air drops, and other rescue efforts from its seemingly endless stores.
The U.S. alone accounts for half of all world corn exports, 40 percent of soybean exports and 30 percent of wheat exports.
But climate change fears are sounding some warning bells.
Some scientists and agronomists are becoming increasingly concerned about the real effects they see now on growing conditions in the Midwest, the vast black-soiled region long the core region of the U.S. agricultural miracle.
They also say that not only skeptical farmers but also government authorities are trying to quietly adapt, from equipment to planting to research.
"We don't have a long-term reserve. We have a global food supply of about 2 or 3 weeks," said Eugene Takle, Professor of Agricultural Meteorology and Director of the Climate Science Program at Iowa State University.
"We've become insensitive to climate -- with air conditioning, irrigation and better practices," he said. "Well, I think we need to rethink that. Just how vulnerable are we?"
Takle and others say the future is now.
"It's not the long-term climate trends," Takle says, "It's the variability. It's the extreme events that have brought the vulnerability of agriculture to climate into the forefront. We think about, and wring our hands for awhile."
Jerry Hatfield, Laboratory Director at the National Soil Tilth Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, has worked with other scientists in research for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He says climate change is occurring right now, as is adaptation to it, in the U.S. farm belt.
"We don't have to think about 2030 or 2050, in the recent memories we've had a lot more variability in our weather," Hatfield said. "This increasing variability of weather, which is associated with our changing climate scenarios, is going to continue to increase the variability in production.
"That's what concerns a lot of us," Hatfield said.
GOVERNMENT FUNDING RESEARCH, FARMERS ADJUSTING
The IPCC, which has been attacked by climate change skeptics, concluded in 2007 that increased frequency of heat stress, droughts and floods are "creating the possibility for surprises, with impacts that are larger, and occurring earlier, than predicted using changes in mean variables alone."
"Climate variability and change also modify the risks of fires, pest and pathogen outbreak, negatively affecting food, fiber and forestry," the Panel said.
Despite the attacks by skeptics, IPCC's conclusions have been accepted as valid by institutions like the U.S. National Academies of Sciences.
In June 2009, the science academies of the G8 countries, plus Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa, demanded action to address global climate change that "is happening even faster than previously estimated."
Takle said Midwest farmers are already adapting.
"Farmers say they don't believe in climate change, but you look at how they spend money and are adapting," he said.
Takle pointed to bigger machinery to allow faster and denser seeding amid rainier springs in the Midwest. Frosts are trending later so crops are kept in fields longer to dry.
But many of the changes are more subtle and hidden than the weather events that grab the headlines, like the massive wildfires, flooding and tornadoes that have hit agricultural areas of the Midwest, Plains and Southwest this year.
Takle said measurable trends of more humidity, for example, has led to higher night-time summer temperatures in the Corn Belt and likely trimmed corn yields in recent years. Corn likes hot days but cool nights.
In Iowa, dew point temperatures have risen 3-1/2 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 35-40 years, equating to 13 percent more moisture in the air during the summertime, he said.
"It's very important that we recognize the vulnerability," Takle said. "We have situations like in Texas. Huge reservoirs have just vanished. You can't do a work around."
The U.S. Agriculture Department this year issued its first grants to study crops and climate change.
"If you're interested in adapting to changes in climatic norms you need to have access to diversity," said Randy Wisser of the University of Delaware, who will study the genetics in exotic tropical maize to see how this might help farmers.
Other grants will address greenhouse gas emissions that affect climate, notably methane from livestock and carbon dioxide from growing crops.
"We are just trying to find a suitable way to keep these farmers in business. It took generations to create the problem it will take generations to fix the problem," said William Horwath of the University in California, who will develop strategy for rice growing in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
"It's a pretty darn complex problem," Hatfield said. "We poke at it, but we need to get very serious about how do we think about adapting our crop production goals to the concepts of variability."
(Reporting by Christine Stebbins; Editing by Peter Bohan)
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47 Comments so far
Show All"It's the variability - surprises - higher dew points & higher humidity"
Welcome to AGW
Manysummits
In Michigan we have had a bad summer for food, garden style. All my neighbors who grow big gardens, mine being a one person type, are all complaining about how the weather has made it hard on our food growth. Tomatoes, a staple, is worthless due to cold nights. May have to switch to Zone 3 !! foods to grow next summer. It's usually a 5-6 here but now I wonder. We have to start thinking in terms of what will work or we'll be out of food production real fast. The lack of concern by most citified folks is as bad as the stupidity about the climate changing. We had a chance to fix it 20 years ago...it's too late, so figure out the next step. And for God's sake,well, your own sakes, stay away from the GMO crap. They will only make this worse.
BTW author, all the farmers I know do believe in the climate change and agree that the corporate/government shills are the ones denying the dangers. You seem to have made a stereotypical comment as if you think farmers are rednecks and stupid. Shame on you.
I think the author just forgot to talk to the farmers, cause all the ones I know also believe the science and have noticed how their yields have changed in the last decade or so...
He works for the media industry, they don't talk to people who know anything about the issues, they talk to the experts who are paid to present themselves as knowing something about the issue (an amazing job considering they don't know jack squat)
Quotation from the article:
"Takle said measurable trends of more humidity, for example, has led to higher night-time summer temperatures in the Corn Belt and likely trimmed corn yields in recent years. Corn likes hot days but cool nights.
In Iowa, dew point temperatures have risen 3-1/2 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 35-40 years, equating to 13 percent more moisture in the air during the summertime, he said."
In my region, it has been raining so frequently (a new trend) that my tomatoes are suffering greatly: I am going to lose more than half of them.
Another quotation from the article:
"'Farmers say they don't believe in climate change, but you look at how they spend money and are adapting,' he said."
A gross generalization, this one. There are many farmers who know that climate change is upon us and that it will get worse.
"The U.S. alone accounts for half of all world corn exports, 40 percent of soybean exports and 30 percent of wheat exports."
Economically American agriculture is locked into mono-culture production, highly dependent on technology, machinery, and yes we are still dependent on weather. The real danger is that a failure of one of these crop cycles would put world food supplies in serious trouble. Drought, temperature extremes, flood, cold nights, pests, the list of risks seems endless, and the economics of our production system has removed the diversity and increased risk for major failure. Ususally our crop insurance protects against total failure, spreads the risk around that the flood which wipes out your neighbor waters your crop and increases yield. Drought with excessive heat over a wide area would be greatly different, imagine a wide band of total loss extending from Nebraska to Ohio with 20 to 50% yield reductions in the Dakota's, MN, WI, MI, MO and NY. Farmers often speak of doing everything possible for themselves, then depending upon God, their faith often lets them label natural diasters as God's will, but in addition to the risks of weather/climate we have gone all in with our dependence upon this monoculture agriculture.
A lot has been done and is being done on this by seed geneticists. Smart companies and big money recognize the obvious of global climate change. They are not like many politicians who pander to fools. In a case like this, capitalism works quite well.
LOL I'm glad someone has a sense of humor around here
You should explain the funny part.
That you don't get the joke is the funny part.
I assume your thinking of politicians and fools, which is of course humerous, but not exactly a joke. My other statements are simply facts. If you disagree, please elaborate, or enjoy your private chuckle.
You're saying thank goodness for capitalism, because the food crisis it caused will be solved by heat-tolerant, drought-tolerant, pest-resistant genetically modified organisms, thanks to the wonders of capitalist inventiveness.
What a hoot!
Scientists are working hard just to keep humanity's collective head above water, and for that are ridiculed by the corporate world and their right wing supporters. At some point the league of responsible and rational scientists will throw its hands up and say it can't do any more. As Scotty would say, "I'm giving it all she's got Captain".
The writer seems to feel obligated to mention "climate change skeptics". The negative force the world and of magical thinkers seems to listen to is "climate change deniers", and it doesn't even deserve a mention here.
Which scientists are those? What are their salaries? Who pays them? The fact that you are a "Star Trekie" doesn't instill confidence in your views or expertise.
You sound like a denier. You want science, try this one regarding PETM on for size:
http://climatecrocks.com/2011/06/29/graph-of-the-day-scientific-american-on-todays-greenhouse-vs-history-the-petm/
or take a look at the original article ( but you have to pay Scientific American):
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-last-great-global-warming
or look at this abridged version in nature:
http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v305/n1full/scientificamerican0711-56.html
And consider one of the side consequences of oceanic carbonic acid overload - no more oysters, clams, or mussels. Bummer, how I love oysters.
Don't pick on Trekies or I'll beam you straight to the next Sarah Palin rally.
For gardenernorcal: does the FACT that the g8 academy of sciences are demanding action on climate change mean absolutely nothing to you? I have lost all patience with you F ing people. You, and your ilk, are either hoplessly stupid or grossly dishonest. In either case I've got no more time to waste on you.
Climate is ever changing. It's a balancing act always has been globally and locally. Mother Nature will always find her level, whether or not man survives or not. And I am not sure Wall St or academia. is the best judge of what's best for the world (Especially when today academia is paid by private enterprise not society.). We can all hyperventilate in fear, or we can all vow to use only what we need. I never hear that as an alternative to all the hype. Perhaps it's the meek that will inherit the earth. Afterall they'll have their head down and their backs into toil. It'll be hard for the rich to squirrel all their wealth away, especially if they are repulsed with getting their own hands dirty.
Excellent post. Mother Nature always wins.
agreed...
Gardenernocal. I have been trying to figure out what you are really saying. I find that the difference between one's use of the term "climate change" and "global warming" usually relates to one belief in whether or not we..people.. are influencing the change.
You seem to suggest that climate is changing and always has been.......which also suggests that you are a global warming denier. Your suggestion that some type of balancing act is taking place seems to minimize the conclusion of the scientific community that man's hand is tipping the scales.
Using only what we need is a fine ideal that I doubt will ever be realized. In the meantime, I am thrilled to hear that farmers and insurance companies are coming to grips with the reality of climate change and global warming. The more ways these facts confront all of us the more difficult it becomes for people (perhaps like you) to rationalize the danger away.
As Rush Limpbone say, "Sure there's climate change - summer, fall, winter, spring". How much dumber can one get to come out with a statement like that. Rush isn't dumb, he is clever. He is talking down to the level of those willful fools from whom he as an entertainer makes lots of money.
Let's be straight, the earth environment is getting warmer to a degree that hasn't occurred in about 55 million years (look up my earlier references I cited above regarding PETM). The prime mover then was unusual geological activity, this time it's AGW. It's warming, not just change. Most of those who ostensibly believe otherwise are not skeptics but deniers.
If the scam artist Obama doesn't turn back the pipeline, he may very well be a major contributor to the demise of homo sapiens and a shit load of other species inhabiting this our only earth. Never mind seeking help from the Repubs, they are a self-serving, vile, idiotic clown act.
Grow your own food and/or keep a goodly supply of staples on hand, preferably enough for a few weeks, at least, and organic. Winter's coming.
Mother earth will take care of over population of the human species. Not much man can do about it, as they are h3ll bent on destroying their life sustaining planet and each other for short term greed.
"Takle said Midwest farmers are already adapting.
"Farmers say they don't believe in climate change, but you look at how they spend money and are adapting," he said."
Who you going to believe? A farmer who gets up every day at dawn and works outside, or a Professor of Agricultural Meteorology and Director of the Climate Science Program at Iowa State University. I can only guess what time he gets up every morning or how many hours he spends outside dealing with real life or getting his hair or nails dirty. I am guessing life's hard for him analysing all that marketing data and attending those meetings and giving those lectures.
Farmers adapting?...you betcha farmers adapt every day of their lives. They have to. They are also realistic and know when someone is trying to skew the facts to influence the market.
Have to wonder how much of Professor Takle's salary and compensation is paid by corporate sponsorship?
The prof relies on data from many farmers to identify trends and clusters. When he or she gets up in the morning has no relevance. Each individual farmer only "knows" at the unreliable level of anecdotes, which is fairly worthless.
Science - in its very essence - is the conscious effort not to fool oneself into believing things that require solid data.
Sure drought and famine can happen here. Especially when this nation revolves around Wall St. and nothing else.
It could anyway, but when we ignore the things that are really important, and only focus on the health of a false indicator, the financial system it's more than likely to happen, because those garnering the greatest profit and using the most resources couldn't care less how their food is produced or how well the people preparing it are faring.
How many crops has Professor Takle ever brought to harvest? Has he even raised a few tomatos for his family? Does he even have a family? I can't find a real bio on him. I can't find out where he was born or what he did before he blossomed into a world renowned "scientist". Who paid for his college or how many siblings he had. He seems to have been developed at Iowa State. Anyone even know his birthdate or parent's names? I smell a "spook".
Here is the bio on Professor Takle: http://www.meteor.iastate.edu/faculty/takle/ Give him a call.
That's the only bio you find anywhere. Two schools and a few consulting and professional gigs. I can get more of a bio on my uncle Elmer. And he never finished high school or published any commentaries.
I'll say it again I smell a spook.
Oh get off it. There are thousands of professional competent academics out there who deserve our attention and rarely get it from the corporate press because they aren't servicing someone in the industy. And since Iowa has (or used to) 25 percent of America's grade A farmland and was once the pig capital of the nation, I think Iowa State University (where BTW I was born) is a good logical place to find these academics!
I smell a wacko.
"climate change is occurring right now, as is adaptation to it"
No need to believe in climate change - climate extreming believes in US being exposed to it anyway.
"We've become insensitive to climate -- with air conditioning, irrigation and better practices," he said. "Well, I think we need to rethink that. Just how vulnerable are we?"
When the bubble of interconnected insulations from nature and climate breaks and unravels, as it's in the very process of doing, then we're going to find out "how vulnerable we are".
Then the big change in attitudes to our selves and our surroundings that the pioneering environ-mentalists and psychedelic explorers have clamored about and begged for will be a shoo-in. The necessity to cooperate with nature again will be self-evident. The time is coming - is indeed already here.
Just look out the window, to whatever parts of nature can be seen there: that's where the real news is happening. Wars and economic breakdown is just a sideshow - to the big story of Nature educating and teaching her off-spring humans to behave.
I get the feeling that many people do not have any idea what could happen to food supplies in a short period of time. Most disasters are local, but a large early or late freeze, or some other situation that impacts us on a massive scale, and the grocery stores will look very different. I think too many of us suffer from the idea that carrying capacity is not for humans, only lessor species. I wonder if we get to be educated by Nature about this simple concept.
"Other grants will address greenhouse gas emissions that affect climate, notably methane from livestock and carbon dioxide from growing crops."
This is not where the money needs to go. These are both examples of biogenic forms of GHG emissions. The real problem, as has been pointed out thousands of times, are the anthropomorphic sources, primarily coal and oil. If we don't handle these sources, no containment of cow farts will help us.
Containing car and truck emissions is a seriously difficult problem. One blessing from the impoverishment of the American middle class will be a reduction in their ability to afford to drive.
We have a real problem containing internal combustion. The world will collapse without trucks. They are truly a necessary evil.
Perry will fix the climate change problem. If it doesn't exist, no problem.
You don't need to ask only farmers. Anyone who has lived in one locale for 20-30 years will gladly describe big changes in his/her local weather as she/he has personally experienced them.
Try it.
Sage advice!
I mentioned to a cashier somewhere around town a year ago that my fruit trees seemed to be producing later and I thought I was noticing changes throughout my landscaping, and surprise of surprises she told me her father was an amateur horticulturist who had been complaining of the very same observations to her recently.
Absolute fact. Ask someone who has been in one place awhile active in their gardens or landscaping; ten years for me in Southern California where I am now, 40 years in SoCal generally. We also notice warmer less snow-filled mountains in winter. Also whereas smog used to be very dense and opaque but mostly adhering directly to the central Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley area, it now seems to be thinner, more diffuse but spread non-stop across the entire state, a light grayish brown pallor everywhere. Before if you drove away from Los Angeles downtown the sky would return to a bright blue. That is true now only very rarely, usually immediately after rains.
I'm from NY state. Yesterday, at our Old Home Parade for Labor Day ( 100 yrs by the way) I had a discussion with one of my distant relatives who I know from our family reunions. We usually stand on the same corner to watch the parade. Anyway, he was talking to another guy, both are farmers.He was talking about flying his plain and things at first...but then, My relative, stated something about how he's waiting on the gas company, because he's selling his farm or some of it or what ever to the gas company. I just gave him a glare at first, then thought better of it, since I like to do diplomacy more than not.. anyway, we got into a great discussion.... about Climate change.... he doesn't believe in it.... yeah.... by the time we got dne, I had him stopping and thinking you could see the wheels turning... I was mentioning David Korten and going local... that caugth his attention...
I am using this site to answer "Oikos" who asked my view on global warming elsewhere on Common Dreams. I am a scientist. I have worked, among others, on the geology of the Cretaceous. Hence I know exactly what can cause global warming. I know that Earth's atmosphere is warming and that our human activities contribute much, perhaps most, perhaps all to it. Where I am somewhat skeptical is with regards to daily weather. Where I live we have had several days of below normal cool nights and mornings. Is that due to global cooling? Or global warming? Finally: let he/she who has never contributed anything to global warming throw the first stone at me.
Isn't climate an average of twenty-five or thirty years of weather? You can't blame a cold or warm spell on global warming--or even the monster drought and heat wave Texas is experiencing (that has to do with La Nina more than anything else). The clear evidence points to a long-term warming of the planet--long-term not in geological terms but in human terms--the last 150 years. Curt Slater's book, Deep Future: The Next 100,000 Years of Life on Earth, explains how global warming will affect life over the long-term. Surprisingly, he does not paint a doomsday scenario (though he grieves for all the species that will be lost).
As you well know, the long-lasting monster drought of Texas is due to an unusually stable high pressure system. What global warming must explain is not why it is so hot here so long but why there is this persistent high pressure system. One of my main concerns about global warming is that measures taken to combat it may have unintended consequences. A good example is the German policy to promote solar energy. The result is that relatively well-to-do people who own their roofs can earn some extra income by selling the electrical power generated, something poorer people and renters cannot do.
~~Crowsnest~~ wrote,,,("What global warming must explain is not why it is so hot here so long but why there is this persistent high pressure system. One of my main concerns about global warming is that measures taken to combat it may have unintended consequences.")... unquote
Scientists have alredy explained long ago why that high pressure system over Texas has sat there all summer long.
Here is your answer Crow... Global warming has effected the Arctic region of Earth much more than any orther area of the Planet... That was predicted to occur many years ago by thousands of highly qualified, very intelligent, highly educated scientists... Because of that, world wide climate changes and weather conditions all over the world have been dramatically altered... That is because the Arcitc climate and weather is the (driving force) for climate and weather for all areas of the planet.
Then your denyig comment that (measures taken to combat global warming) is sheer ignorance... There have not been ANY meaningful measures taken to combat global warmilng and you know it... We are now emitting far more Co2 than ever before from burning coal to produce electrical power plants, especially in China and they are importing much of their coal from the United States, where we are destroying our enviroment by mountain top removal to mine that coal.
Yor pitiful example of solar panel use in Germany is silly blather,,, whic is your style.
Has anybody noticed that the picture isn't of a field of corn, it's a picture of soybeans...