Climate Change and Global Food Access

Introduction

Climate change will radically impact global agricultural output, availability, and supply chains. Rising temperatures are detrimental to the viability of essential crops, threatening their output and the sustainability of agriculture throughout long-productive regions. While certain areas’ farmland will be more immediately threatened, no part of the Earth will remain untouched by the stressors born of a heating planet. The longer climate change continues unabated, the more severe these will become, and the more damaging they will be to worldwide food production.

Plants that were domesticated during the temperate era that has allowed settled agriculture will be significantly less viable in a warmer climate, particularly one that is heating at such an aggressive rate. The causes are manifold - droughts and extreme temperatures are detrimental to crop growth, aridification and flooding degrade soil quality, while milder winters and hotter summers are hospitable to crop pests. Both climate change and agricultural desiccation will produce a host of second-order consequences as well, which will only further degrade global food output. Past certain thresholds, entire systems of agricultural output may collapse altogether. Food will therefore become increasingly scarce, expensive, and difficult to obtain the warmer the Earth becomes.

This report will focus primarily on grains and cereal crops, which are typically non-perishable and account for a disproportionate amount of global nutrition. These have long constituted both the most widely produced and traded foodstuffs, being easy to raise in large quantities and storable for long periods of time. A collapse in their production will risk famine, itself one of climate change’s most dire consequences. Forecasting the risks at hand will therefore be necessary for adapting around their loss and preventing the worst-case outcomes of scarcity, supply collapse, and national destabilization.

The Holocene

The climate that first allowed settled agriculture, and has persisted relatively unchanged until the mass burning of fossil fuels, emerged after the close of the last ice age approximately 14,000 years ago. As the Earth shifted on its axis, the planet underwent a period of gradual warming that caused glaciers to retreat from their extent as far south as the Mediterranean and Tibet. The average global temperature 21,000 years ago was approximately 11 degrees Fahrenheit (or 6 degrees Celsius) colder than it is today, resulting in a biosphere far less amenable to crop management. This shift into a warmer era allowed our species to proliferate across regions that had once been inhospitable, after which settled communities began domesticating plants newly able to thrive amidst the more temperate climate.

A period known as the Neolithic Revolution soon followed, during which humanity began selectively breeding various forms of wild cereals - barley, corn, sorghum, wheat, and rice -  whose wild cousins we had long gathered for sustenance. The combination of warmer temperatures and the longer dry seasons that followed were conducive to cycles of planting and harvest during which crops were seeded on an annual basis and collected months later - allowing food production at a scale that would not have been possible from hunting and gathering alone. It is this very same practice that supported burgeoning communities, allowing exponential human population growth over the ensuing millennia. Agriculture would emerge concurrently across multiple areas of human settlement, including regions that correspond with modern day Syria, India, China, Ethiopia, and Papua New Guinea, before emerging later in Europe and the Americas.

This foundation is now under threat. Atmospheric carbon dioxide and the insulating effect it produces on this planet have increased radically over the past two hundred years, a process that has only accelerated over the past five decades and is slated to continue doing so into at least the near future. Just as markedly colder temperatures were hostile to settled agriculture, rapid planetary heating will have a negative impact on crop viability. This process will have global ramifications, interrupting agricultural output and leading to abrupt and unprecedented shortages that threaten the ability for growing proportions of humanity to acquire basic sustenance. These cessations will also produce a host of political and economic effects, which makes forecasting these potential outcomes an absolute necessity for avoiding the worst forms of climate-induced destabilization.

As a point of scale, atmospheric CO2 has increased from 327.55 parts per million (PPM) to 419.05 PPM from 1972-2022, an increase of nearly 28% over just half a century. This has accompanied a sharp increase in planetary temperatures over such a minute timeframe, with the Earth’s average temperature having risen 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880, the vast majority of which has occurred since 1975. Planetary temperatures have increased by 0.3-0.35 degrees Fahrenheit each decade since the 1970s, with annual temperature increases only continuing to rise concurrent with worldwide fossil fuel consumption. Projections gathered by the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 2012 laid out a window of 2 to 9.7°F rise in average global temperatures by 2100, with standing industrial trends suggesting outcomes may be closer to higher-end heat projections. These increases could result in a climate that is over 11°F hotter than when humanity first domestic major grain crops, the warming opposite of the 11°F colder climate that defined the prior ice age.

Climate Impacts on Food Production

Just as the preceding cold period was broadly inhospitable to settled agriculture, planetary heating will produce a host of negative consequences for food production. These will not be restricted to one sole detriment, with an abrupt shift into a warmer era unleashing multiple concurrent stressors. These encompass both ecological and weather upheavals alongside the generally negative impact extreme heat has on crop viability. Many of these will feed off each other as well, producing disruptions to food output that are more abrupt than they are predictably linear.

Analysis compiled by NASA under multiple complex models projected a worldwide drop in corn (maize), rice, and soybean production as early as 2030, with particularly strong and certain decreases in maize production throughout tropical regions where it is widely cultivated. Overall, global maize output was forecasted to decline 24% by 2030 under scenarios of higher CO2 output. As the report notes:

“Maize, or corn, is grown all over the world, and large quantities are produced in countries nearer the equator. North and Central America, West Africa, Central Asia, Brazil, and China will potentially see their maize yields decline in the coming years and beyond as average temperatures rise across these breadbasket regions, putting more stress on the plants… With the interconnectedness of the global food system, impacts in even one region’s breadbasket will be felt worldwide.”

The output of nearly all varieties of grain are slated to plummet across a heating planet. These are due to a confluence of factors that decrease crop viability, harm their lifecycles, limit plant growth, or otherwise disrupt what would otherwise be reliable harvests. This will subsequently cause interruptions to global food availability and the agricultural economy as a whole, leading to harsh shortages that will only become more dire if critical planning and adaptive measures are not taken to blunt their impact.

Drought and Extreme Heat

One of climate change’s most widely threatening consequences for global crop production will be heating and drought across major breadbaskets. Rising temperatures are evaporating water resources, resulting in greater extremes between dry regions and areas of heavy precipitation - or leading to prolonged dry spells and brief periods of torrential rainfall within the same locale. A disproportionate amount of these aridifying regions are hubs of significant crop output, a process that will lead to the mounting failure of their agricultural systems. This encompasses nations that are net food exporters, a disruption that will risk not just domestic shortages but a global food crisis that increases commensurate with the rate of planetary warming.

Droughts risk consequences for both crops as well as the broader ecology throughout a given region. Droughts inevitably demand greater water from local sources, as an uninterrupted lack of rainfall desiccates the soil in ways that would not occur with even slight episodes of precipitation. Heat stressors become even more damaging to plant life when coupled with parched soil, creating multiple harms to the biological functions of essential crops. As a result, extreme heat stunts or outright prevents the growth of cereal and grain crops, undercutting yields and leading to abrupt drops in the productive capacities of breadbasket regions.

Even in cases where water resources might be available, extreme temperatures are still broadly harmful to crop viability. As a research team from the University of Colorado Boulder summarized, “successive days of excessive heat seemed to have a cumulatively negative effect beyond what would be expected by examining peak high temperatures alone.” Extreme heat forces crops to absorb greater volumes of soil moisture to remain viable, further straining water resources that might already be threatened by these same high temperatures. Higher temperatures also make it difficult for plants to develop strong root systems, degrading their resiliency and output potential while also undermining photosynthetic processes and other critical biochemic reactions. The longer heatwaves persist, and the higher the accompanying temperature spikes, the more damaging these stressors become for regional agricultural output.

Another distinct outcome of rising temperatures will be interruptions to agricultural labor, as working outside for any length of time might become difficult if not outright impossible during heatwaves. This will have a compounding impact on the toll droughts take on crop yields as the work necessary to mitigate the consequences of climatic damage will be interrupted, leading to even more dire outcomes for regional food output.

Crop Pests

While extreme temperatures are hostile to plant life, these very same conditions are hospitable to a range of creatures that feed upon or otherwise disrupt the growth of essential grains. Hotter summers and milder winters are friendlier to the lifecycles of crop pests, while planetary warming will increase the habitable range of species that consume some of humanity’s main sources of nutrition. Droughts and heatwaves that damage crops and undermine their core biological processes only make them more vulnerable to crop pests, allowing insect species to nest within or feed upon weakened plants. Insect metabolic rates also tend to increase with rising temperatures, accelerating their lifecycles and rate at which they proliferate.

Research published by the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) noted a particular insect threat to wheat crops, the one major grain that might otherwise be least threatened by rising global temperatures. Within the cooler regions where wheat is grown, rising temperatures will allow greater insect survivability during previously cold winter months while diminishing the populations of their natural predators. These consequences will be especially dire in aridifying regions like the central United States, only further exacerbating the harm to agrarian economies in areas facing persistent drought.

Excessive Rainfall

The widening extremes between arid regions and those prone to overwhelming rainfall will produce consequences for areas undergoing increasingly heavy precipitation as well. Intense rain events can physically damage crops, delay planting and harvesting, restrict root growth, and cause oxygen deficiency and nutrient loss. Excessive rainfall was estimated to have caused $10 billion in agricultural losses across the United States alone from 1989 to 2016, a total that will only continue to mount as planetary temperatures rise. In addition, drought in certain areas does not provide reprieve from climate stressors in others. Rather, the growing divide between arid regions and those subject to overwhelming downpour will place a dual stressors upon the global agricultural economy that undermines worldwide food output as a whole.

In certain countries, alternation between periods of extreme drought and overwhelming rainfall will work in tandem to continually disrupt crop yields. Analysis compiled by the University of Illinois found that “during some years, excessive rainfall reduced U.S. corn yield by as much as 34% relative to the expected yield. Data suggest that drought and excessive heat caused a yield loss of up to 37% during some years.” This interplay could potentially wreck the grain and cereal yields of larger countries, especially as separate regions within them are subject to the combined stress of overwhelming drought and abrupt downpours. Heavy rainfall is a particular threat to cooler parts of the globe that might be less ravaged by planetary heating, introducing a stressor into areas temporarily safe from unlivable heatwaves.

Soil Quality

Both drought and excess rainfall can degrade soil quality through reducing nutrients that are essential for crop health. Flooding and heavy precipitation strip oxygen and nitrogen from the soil, with especially prolonged rainfall only exacerbating this process. Conversely, prolonged drought and the parched soil it produces can inhibit nutrient uptake throughout a plant’s root system, making it difficult for crops to draw essential nitrogen.

Agriculture Globalization

Humanity’s agricultural production has internationalized rapidly over the past few decades, corresponding with a broader period of globalization enabled by fossil fuel usage. The mass extraction of oil has been used to power whole industries of airborne shipping alongside expedited overland and nautical transit. As a result, humanity’s agricultural production has shifted from domestic self-sufficiency towards one under which particular nations grow and export a surplus of foodstuffs to deficit regions. The combination of industrialized agriculture mixed with regional specialization has built in a worldwide food economy that is particularly vulnerable to the ravages of climate change, as the breakdown of production within a given country will ricochet well beyond the nation in question.

Prior to the advent of the interconnected global economy, the overwhelming proportion of grains consumed within a given region were produced locally or drawn from neighboring states. Under the current era’s combination of industrialized agriculture and widespread international trade, essential foodstuffs are often drawn from well beyond the point of consumption. While rice is consumed in massive quantities worldwide, its largest producers rest throughout east and south Asia. India stands as the world’s largest rice exporter, trading 18.75 million metric tons with external partners in 2022. Vietnam is currently the second largest rice exporter, shipping 6.5 million metric tons that same year.

By contrast, global wheat exports tend to overwhelmingly originate from more temperate regions across the United States and Europe. Russia, Canada, the United States, and the European Union accounted for roughly 60% of world wheat exports from 2015 through 2020. However, these regions’ collective wheat exports had dropped to only 50.7% of global trade during the 2020-2021 season due to droughts across North America and Europe. These contractions present especially challenging problems in light of escalating demand for grains and cereals. As a point of scale, global rice consumption increased by almost 60 million metric tons (from 437 million metric tons to around 496 million metric tons) between 2008 and 2020. One of the greatest risks at hand is that climatic stressors will undermine worldwide grain production amidst a simultaneous increase in demand, inflicting consequences on pricing and overall global supply.

Essential Crops

Grains represent humanity’s single greatest source of nutrition, with more than 50% of worldwide caloric intake currently derived from cereal grains alone. Grain crops can be harvested in large quantities with relative ease in variable soil, and are non-perishable when stored in the right conditions. The modern agricultural economy is as dependent on their cultivation as the earliest human settlements once were, and the globalization of food production has resulted in the massive exchange of grain products through extensive trade networks. The food security of entire nations can hinge on the import of foreign grains, with climatic stressors in a given region liable to produce supply constrictions and price inflations worldwide.

While rising temperatures are a dire threat to agricultural output, the worldwide demand for grains is only increasing - and the dependency of certain nations on breadbasket regions deepening. Worldwide grain production has increased substantially over the past two decades, with the net production of wheat increasing from 582 to 793  million tons while coarse grains (primarily corn, but also sorghum and barley) increasing from 905 million to 1.5 billion tons between 2001 and 2021. While coarse grains are often used to feed livestock, cereals like rice and wheat are almost exclusively used as a dietary staple. This continuous year-over-year increase in grain production to meet escalating demand is going to produce resounding global consequences when running against the climate-induced agricultural damage slated to occur within the next decade, let alone the even more dire stressors projected to arise beyond 2030.

Corn (Maize)

Worldwide Annual Production (2022): 1.2 billion tons

Worldwide Annual Trade: 185 million tons

Primary Growth Regions:

1. United States - 346.0 million metric tons
2. China - 260.8 million metric tons
3. Brazil - 102 million metric tons
4. Argentina - 51 million metric tons
5. Ukraine - 35.9 million metric tons

Primary Export Regions:

1. United States - 60.9 million metric tons
2. Brazil - 47 million metric tons
3. Argentina - 41 million metric tons
4. Ukraine - 9 million metric tons
5. European Union - 4.7 million metric tons

Primary Import Regions:

1. China - 18 million metric tons
2. Mexico - 17.7 million metric tons
3. Japan - 15.2 million metric tons
4. European Union - 15 million metric tons
5. South Korea - 11.5 million metric tons
6. Vietnam - 11.5 million metric tons
7. Iran - 9.5 million metric tons
8. Egypt - 9.2 million metric tons
9. Colombia - 6 million metric tons
10. Taiwan - 4.4 million metric tons

Corn stands as both the most widely cultivated cereals and one of the most climate-vulnerable. Total worldwide corn production is nearly shy of  wheat and rice combined. In contrast to wheat and rice, corn is used primarily for biofuels and animal feed - serving as an integral foundation of the livestock industry. As a point of scale, 48.7% of corn grown within the United States in 2013 was used in animal feed, while 30% was processed into biofuels, with roughly 10% being used for human consumption. Corn is also used in a range of industrial products that span from detergents to wood coating.

Foreign corn production upholds entire meat and poultry sectors on its own terms. Japan remains inordinately dependent on corn imports to maintain its livestock industry, producing only 2,000 tons of corn domestically against the over 15 million tons it imports annually. The particularly climate-vulnerable state of global corn production stands to threaten the already ecologically unsustainable factory farming that supplies an overwhelming amount of worldwide protein. In contrast to the more evenly dispersed corn import regions, three countries - the United States, Brazil, and Argentina - provide over 80% of global corn exports. The considerable disparity between a wide variety of corn importers and the heavy concentration of corn exports within a climatically vulnerable tropical nation like Brazil only exacerbates the potential insecurities and fluctuations of worldwide corn trade, including its subsequent impacts on the domestic economies of these importers.

Wheat

Worldwide Annual Production (2022): 765 million metric tons

Worldwide Annual Trade: 180 million metric tons

Primary Growth Regions:

1. China - 134.3 million metric tons
2. India - 107.6 million metric tons
3. Russia - 85.9 million metric tons
4. United States - 49.7 million metric tons
5. Canada - 35.2 million metric tons

Primary Export Regions:

1. Russia - 39 million metric tons
2. European Union - 34 million metric tons
3. Australia - 24 million metric tons
4. Canada - 24 million metric tons
5. United States - 21.1 million metric tons
6. Argentina - 14 million metric tons
7. Ukraine - 10 million metric tons
8. India - 8.5 million metric tons
9. Kazakhstan - 8 million metric tons
10. Turkey - 6.8 million metric tons

Primary Import Regions:

1. Indonesia - 11.2 million metric tons
2. China - 11 million metric tons
3. Turkey - 10 million metric tons
4. China - 9.5 million metric tons
5. Algeria - 7.9 million metric tons
6. Bangladesh - 7.5 million metric tons
7. Morocco - 7 million metric tons
8. Nigeria - 6.5 million metric tons
9. Brazil - 6.4 million metric tons
10. Philippines - 6.3 million metric tons

Wheat is the most heavily produced of any agricultural product that is raised primarily for human consumption, and is traded at an unusually high rate well beyond its main growth areas. Approximately 24% of all wheat that is cultivated worldwide is exported to foreign markets, including into some of the most climatically vulnerable tropical regions. As of writing, 20% of calories consumed worldwide are drawn from wheat alone. Populous countries spanning from Oceania to the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa rely on foreign wheat production that will become increasingly threatened across a warming planet.

Wheat surplus is largely drawn from more temperate regions, with the United States, Canada, European Union, Ukraine, and Russia standing as top exporters despite growing less than India and China. Water scarcity throughout these breadbaskets is set to double within the next 20 to 50 years under projections of moderate global warming - with current industrial activity and temperature rise observed thus far suggesting higher end projections are more likely. While current drought conditions only threaten 15% of global wheat production, projected warming by 2050 could result in droughts threatening at least 60% of wheat-growing regions.

Rice

Worldwide Annual Production (2022): 517.1 million metric tons

Worldwide Annual Trade: 49 million tons

Primary Growth Regions (2019):

1. China - 211.4 million metric tons
2. India - 117.6 million metric tons
3. Indonesia - 54.6 million metric tons
4. Bangladesh - 54.6 million metric tons
5. Vietnam - 43.4 million metric tons
6. Thailand - 28.3 million metric tons
7. Myanmar - 26.3 million metric tons
8. Philippines - 18.7 million metric tons
9. Pakistan - 11.1 million metric tons
10. Brazil - 10.4 million metric tons

Primary Exporters (2022):

1. India - 18.75 million metric tons
2. Vietnam - 6.5 million metric tons
3. Thailand - 6.5 million metric tons
4. Pakistan - 4 million metric tons
5. United States - 2.85 million metric tons
6. China - 2.2 million metric tons
7. Myanmar - 1.9 million metric tons
8. Cambodia - 1.4 million metric tons
9. Brazil - 0.9 million metric tons
10. Uruguay - 0.8 million metric tons

Primary Importers:

1. China - 4.6 million metric tons
2. Philippines - 2.5 million metric tons
3. Nigeria - 2 million metric tons
4. European Union - 1.9 million metric tons
5. Côte D’Ivoire - 1.45 million metric tons
6. Saudi Arabia - 1.4 million metric tons
7. Nepal - 1.35 million metric tons
8. Iraq - 1.25 million metric tons
9. Iran - 1.2 million metric tons
10. Malaysia - 1.1 million metric tons

Similar to wheat, Rice is grown overwhelmingly for human consumption and serves as a dietary foundation for hundreds of millions worldwide. Rice provides an estimated 20% of all calories consumed globally, with the combination of wheat, rice, and corn providing nearly 50% of human sustenance just on their own. In contrast to the often temperate climates in which wheat is grown, rice is cultivated overwhelmingly throughout the tropics, with its main growers spanning south and east Asia. However, like wheat, some of the largest rice importers are scattered well beyond these sourcing areas, including throughout the more arid parts of the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa.

The combination of growing populations and climate stressors risks a vice between rising demand for rice and declining global yields. Future rice production under climate change has been projected at 40% lower by 2100, with Stanford University professor of earth system sciences Scott Fendorf noting that, ““By the time we get to 2100, we’re estimated to have approximately 10 billion people, so that would mean we have 5 billion people dependent on rice, and 2 billion who would not have access to the calories they would normally need.” These trends are already underway across even more temperate, lower-output regions such as the United States where rice yields were projected at 3.5% lower in the 2021/2022 crop season compared to the prior year. Excessive rainfall has also decreased rice outputs throughout Bangladesh, a primary grower, with yields declining by 2% in 20202 over the prior year.

Barley

Worldwide Annual Production (2022): 147.05 million tons (decrease from 160.53 in 2020)

Worldwide Annual Trade:

Primary Growth Regions:

1. Russian Federation - 20.5 million tons
2. France - 13.56 million tons
3. Germany - 11.6 million tons
4. Canada - 10.4 million tons
5. Ukraine - 8.9 million tons

Primary Export Regions:

1. European Union - 7.3 million tons
2. Australia - 6.5 million tons
3. Russian Federation - 6 million tons
4. Argentina - 3.7 million tons
5. Canada - 3.5 million tons

Primary Import Regions:

1. China - 10 million tons
2. Saudi Arabia - 5.5 million tons
3. Iran - 2.5 million tons
4. Japan - 1.2 million tons
5. Libya - 0.85 million tons
   

Barley is grown mostly as a source of animal fodder, with approximately 70% cultivated worldwide used to feed livestock while the remainder is used in brewing and food preparation. Primary growth regions are located throughout the temperate parts of Europe and North America, while primary importers span east Asia and the topics - all of which are warmer regions less hospitable to its cultivation. Over 60% of worldwide barley output is concentrated within Europe alone, rendering future climate patterns within the EU, Ukraine, and Russia particularly impactful on global supply. These stressors will likely be even more demanding on the smaller-scale barley cultivation maintained throughout the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, forcing them to undergo shortage or draw even greater imports from external regions.

Soybeans

Worldwide Annual Production (2022): 353.46 million tons

Worldwide Annual Trade: Estimated at greater than $60 billion annually

Primary Growth Regions (2021):

1. Brazil - 139 million tons
2. United States - 120.7 million tons
3. Argentina - 46.5 million tons
4. China - 16.4 million tons
5. India - 11.9 million tons

Primary Exporters:

1. Brazil - 86 million tons
2. United States - 62.1 million tons
3. Argentina - 6.85 million tons
4. Paraguay - 6 million tons
5. Canada - 4.2 million tons

Primary Importers:

1. China - 60% of world imports
2. Mexico - 3.41% of world imports
3. Argentina - 3.04% of world imports
4. Netherlands - 2.67% of world imports
5. Thailand - 2.64% of world imports

While not a grain cereal, soy is currently the world’s fourth most cultivated crop measured in annual yields. Despite being higher in protein, soybeans are primarily harvested for use in animal feed - 98% of soybean meal is used in animal fodder, while only 1% is used for human consumption. Global soybean production is concentrated largely within Brazil and the United States, which cultivate nearly 75% of the world’s soybeans and export over half their yields to foreign markets - the vast majority of which are shipped to China.

The climatic state of the United States and Brazil will therefore be an overwhelming determinant of the stability of the global soybean trade and its impacts on the already resource-arduous livestock industry. Similar to corn, soybeans appear particularly climate-vulnerable among major crops - with projections indicating that climate and ecological stressors will reduce soybean production even within temperate areas while annual demands continue to rise. Paradoxically, the destruction of forests throughout Brazil to make greater room for soybean fields is only increasing planetary heating, producing a dire threat to these very same farms.

Fruits and Vegetables

Most Cultivated Fresh Fruit (2020):

1. Bananas - 119.8 million tons
2. Watermelons - 101.6 million tons
3. Apples - 86.4 million tons
4. Grapes - 78 million tons
5. Oranges - 75.5 million tons

Top Banana Producers:

1. India - 30.46 million tons
2. China - 12 million tons
3. Indonesia - 7.3 million tons
4. Brazil - 6.8 million tons
5. Ecuador - 6.6 million tons

While not grown at the same volume as grain and cereal crops, worldwide fresh fruit production exceeded 875 million tons in the 2021/2022 growing season. In the case of a product like bananas, cultivation is overwhelmingly located throughout the tropics or surrounding areas, rendering it one of the world’s most climatically threatened crops. India alone produces 25% of the world’s bananas, while bananas constitute 30% of all global fruit exports. In totality, the Asia-Pacific region accounts for approximately 50% of all fruit production, with China alone cultivating over 240 million tons of fruit annually - accounting for over one fourth of global production just on its own. As a matter of scale, western Europe stands as the second largest fruit growing region after the Asia-Pacific, collectively growing 13% of the world’s total fruit in a given year.

Global fruit trade has risen 40% over the past decade from 45 million tons to 63 million tons in annual exports. Southeast Asia has seen the greatest rate of increase in fruit production, while production within the European Union has grown much more conservatively. While 60% of the fresh fruit trade (excluding bananas) is intra-regional, a considerable amount of production from both Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa is exported to markets farther afield. 85% of non-banana fruit production from Latin America is sent to outside regions, while the total for sub-Saharan countries rests at 90%. A full 30% of non-banana fruit grown in Latin America is sent to North America, while 40% of non-banana fruit grown within sub-Saharan Africa is sent to the EU. The concentration of fruit production throughout the heat-vulnerable tropics leaves particular risk of disruption, portending a strain on worldwide supply chains as the climate crisis worsens.

Beef and Poultry

Net Global Poultry and Meat Production (2021): 334.6 million tons

Top Meat Products by Worldwide Output (2021):

1. Poultry - 135.1 million tons
2. Pork - 112.9 million tons
3. Beef and Veal - 70.4 million tons
4. Sheep - 16.2. million tons

Top Poultry Producing Regions (2019):

1. United States - 19.7 million tons
2. Brazil - 13.8 million tons
3. European Union - 12.5 million tons
4. China - 12 million tons
5. India - 5.1 million tons

Top Poultry Exporters (2019):

1. Brazi - 3.8 million tons
2. United States - 3.2 million tons
3. European Union - 1.5 million tons
4. Thailand - 0.9 million tons
5. China - 0.48 million tons

Top Poultry Importers (2019):

1. Japan - 1.17 million tons
2. Mexico - 0.86 million tons
3. European Union - 0.68 million tons
4. Saudi Arabia - 0.67 million tons
5. Iraq - 0.64 million tons

Top Beef Producers (2021):

1. United States - 12.6 million tons
2. Brazil - 10.4 million tons
3. China - 7 million tons
4. India - 4 million tons (including water buffalo)
5. Argentina - 3.1 million tons

Top Beef Exporters (2018):

1. Brazil - 2.03 million tons
2. India - 1.9 million tons
3. Australia - 1.6 million tons
4. United States - 1.37 million tons
5. New Zealand - 0.56 million tons

The tonnage of meat produced annually is fractional that of grain and cereal crops, in large part due to the exceptional inputs required to raise livestock to maturity. Beyond the ethical and environmental considerations, factory farming also consumes a sizable volume of resources to produce a comparatively smaller volume of product. As calculated by the Yale University’s School for Business and the Environment, it requires 25 calories of food input to produce one calorie of beef, 15 calories of input to produce one calorie of pork, and 9 calories of input to produce one calorie of poultry - nominally the most efficient of all livestock.

As a result, the global meat trade is both much smaller than other agricultural sectors while being far more demanding upon resources that will become increasingly strained under climatic strain. This presents another major constriction point, as worldwide meat demand and production have increased rapidly over the past two decades - including significant growth throughout east Asia - which is only slated to increase despite mounting ecological pressures. Large-scale beef production has also involved rampant environmental destruction, with Brazil’s push to grow its cattle industry predicated upon clearcutting the Amazon rainforest. The recent spate of wildfires throughout Brazil’s tropical forests have been caused overwhelmingly by agricultural plot burning, while cows release significant quantities of methane over the course of their lives - an especially harmful greenhouse gas that has an even greater insulating effect on the Earth’s atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

Factory farming is therefore both ecologically unsustainable and an accelerator of global warming unto itself. The global meat trade will potentially undergo heavy shocks over the coming decades, especially as major tropical producers like Brazil suffer increasing climate disruption. The sector’s inherent inefficiency will produce its own host of challenges amidst strains upon grain output, especially since worldwide corn, soybean, and barley production is predicated on funneling an inordinate amount of this into factory farms. This presents the likelihood that global demand might far outstrip supply, or that a focus on increasing this level of beef production will produce unbearable strain on other sectors of the agricultural economy.

Temperature and Climate Trends

Planetary temperatures have increased sharply over the past 200 years, with an especially aggressive increase over the past half-century commensurate with worldwide fossil fuel consumption. The rate of planetary heating is increasing decade-over-decade as well, and appears slated to do so into the immediate future in light of both climate inaction among wealthier countries alongside growing fossil fuel usage across developing nations. The resulting climatic disruptions are only becoming correspondingly more severe, widespread, and frequent. Past certain heat thresholds, engaging in sustained physical labor throughout the tropics will become lethal, slowing entire agricultural sectors. In scenarios of prolonged climate change, human life within especially heat-stricken regions will become unfeasible, essentially shuttering their food output.

The primary cause of global warming - annual CO2 emissions - have risen dramatically over the past three decades, increasing from 20.5 billion tons (or Gt) in 1990 to 33.0 billion tons in 2021. This is an over 37% spike, a process that has been driven by sustained CO2 output within the United States running headfirst into rising output across developing nations like China and India. European Union CO2 emissions have declined over the preceding decades, dropping from a height of nearly 4 billion tons in 1979 to 2.5 billion tons in 2020. While still inordinately high, United States annual CO2 emissions have also declined from a height of over 6 billion tons in 2007 to slightly over 4.57 billion tons in 2020. India’s net CO2 emissions have increased by over 380% in a 25 year timeframe, rising from 0.655 billion tons in 1990 to nearly 2.5 Gt in 2015. China has quickly surpassed the United States as the world’s single largest CO2 emitter, with its annual CO2 output rising from 2.3 billion tons in 1990 to 10.46 billion tons in 2015 - increasing by well over 450% over a quarter century. While still emitting less than the United States on a per capita basis, China has emerged as a greater annual producer of CO2 than any single country before it.

These have been accompanied by extreme weather activity and temperature spikes across every part of the globe. Heatwaves in major agricultural producers spanning India to the United States have inflicted damage on the output of breadbasket regions throughout the 2020 and 2021 harvesting seasons, a trend that is only slated to worsen throughout the next two decades - if not significantly longer - considering the industrial activity and environmental policy of major climate polluters. Heatwaves throughout the tropics have become especially pronounced, while water shortages and temperature spikes have begun to threaten crop output on a global scale. Measuring the impact of these disruptions on the agricultural economies of major producers will therefore be necessary for determining their impact on global food output and preparing against the shocks to come.

Both the United States and European Union’s CO2 emissions have declined from relative peaks, represented in red, while the emissions of China and India have risen dramatically over the past two decades. China now stands as the single greatest annual national CO2 emitter despite producing lower aggregate emissions than the United States as of 2022, a figure that is likely to be outstripped assuming the country’s output either escalates or continues.

As a result of CO2 emissions across North America and Europe remaining high alongside rapid growth in China and India’s output, the concentration of CO2 within the Earth’s atmosphere has risen at an escalating rate over the half-century, resulting in correspondingly rapid increase in planetary temperatures and climatic disruption.

As noted by the United State’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Earth’s temperature has risen by 0.14° Fahrenheit (0.08° Celsius) per decade since 1880, but the rate of warming since 1981 is more than twice that: 0.32° F (0.18° C) per decade, a pace that is only set to increase.

This escalation has been met by record heat waves across the globe that have either broken longstanding records or marked quick escalations over newly set records, all occurring within the past five years.

The environmental policies of China, India, and Brazil - including Brazil’s ongoing destruction of the Amazon rainforest - indicate that the annual increase in the Earth’s temperature is only going to become more aggressive due to increasingly rapid buildup of atmospheric CO2. Certain climate change feedback loops, including the melting of arctic permafrost and wildfires that both destroy CO2-absorbing arboreal life while releasing bursts of CO2 due to the blazes themselves, will only exacerbate this trend and the resulting impact on global food supply.

Regional Impacts

South Asia

India currently stands as one of the world’s preeminent crisis areas for global food output, both as a major exporter and an already sweltering tropical region. The combination of local heatwaves and its exceptional rice, wheat, and fresh fruit output could lead to shortages that upend foreign agricultural markets. In contrast to China - which is a heavy agricultural importer - India’s production feeds both its billion-plus citizens alongside a range of foreign recipients. These are concentrated primarily throughout its periphery, with Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Afghanistan, and the United Arab Emirates standing as five of its ten main wheat export partners. These countries’ arid climates and often-inhospitable growing conditions have necessitated a certain degree of recuperation from outside breadbaskets, with declines in India’s production liable to inflict spikes in food prices and shortages elsewhere.

Climate projections outline that India’s wheat output could decline by 8% if average global temperatures rise by another 1 degree Celsius. This would result in India’s approximately 107.6 million tons of annual wheat production dropping by over 8.6 million tons, or more than its entire 2021 exports. This would risk a multinational sourcing crisis just on its own terms, which is to say nothing of the certain drop in output across other breadbasket regions afflicted by heatwaves, drought, and other climatic disruptions.

The recent spate of record-breaking heat across India and rising global CO2 emissions indicate these regional extremes are only slated to increase in both intensity and frequency throughout the immediate future, threatening the production of other major crops as well. India stands as the world’s second-largest producer and single greatest rice exporter, responsible for upholding over 38% of global rice trade on its own. Along with other tropical rice producers like Nigeria and Haiti, India has begun to see declines in rice output as a consequence of rising planetary temperatures - with the productivity of the region’s rice farms declining by 1% from 1998-2008, a timeframe that corresponded with an unprecedentedly harsh spike in planetary temperatures. These decreases were far more pronounced in certain regions, with warmer central and south Indian provinces seeing rice yields that declined by as much as 7%. With 30% of all calories consumed in India being drawn from rice alone, the country’s population growth running into increasingly rapid planetary heating could lead to the world’s single greatest rice exporter no longer being able to compensate against the food production deficits of outside partners.

China

While India manages to meet its own substantial agricultural needs alongside serving as a major exporter, China is far less agriculturally self-sufficient. The world’s most populous nation is also the world’s single largest importer of food despite its substantial domestic production, with China’s import reliance only slated to increase over the coming years. Overall, China’s food self-sufficiency is projected to decline from 94.5% in 2015 to around 91% by 2025. Its greatest deficits in food production, and subsequent reliance on outside partners, are likely to come from soybeans and corn. China therefore stands at a difficult crossroads, as it has emerged as both the greatest annual climate polluter while remaining dependent on the agricultural imports of the United States and Brazil, who stand as the world’s second largest annual climate polluter and one of the world’s most climatically threatened major economies respectively.

This is a particularly vulnerable place for a nation of China’s stature to rest at, and will likely inform even more aggressive pursuit of outside food sources and leveraging of national influence to acquire these. The country’s ongoing development policies suggest its mammoth CO2 output will remain either consistent or increase over the coming years, only exacerbating a mounting global food crisis that China will be forced to navigate as its agricultural self-sufficiency declines alongside the availability of external food sources. The stability of, and access to, foreign agricultural markets will therefore be inordinately determined by China’s domestic policy choices over the coming decades, presenting a difficult vice the rest of the world will have to contend with assuming a worst-case scenario of unmitigated Chinese CO2 output.

Southeast Asia

While not as monolithic as India in terms of standalone national output, the greater southeast Asia region is home to producers - namely  Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and Myanmar - whose aggregate production supplies a disproportionate amount of the international grain trade. These four countries alone provide 33% of global rice exports, rendering over one in three rice grains imported worldwide originating from southeast Asia. The region also stands as one of the globe’s most climate-threatened areas, facing a particularly dire combination of droughts and extreme weather events that are emerging across Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam (collectively known as the ASEAN region). As a result, southeast Asia is contending with the kind of intense weather extremes - namely swings between localized water shortages and heavy monsoons - that could prove uniquely disruptive to the region’s crop output.

As Benjamin P. Horton, director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore at Nanyang Technological University remarked to Deutsche Welle in a 2021 news report, "Recent studies estimate that up to 96% of the ASEAN region is likely to be affected by drought, and up to 64% affected by extreme drought" within the immediate future. This is concerning in large part because an overwhelming amount of southeast Asia’s exceptional rice output is drawn from farms along the Mekong River, which originates from China and flows down into Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia before finishing in southwest Vietnam. Water flow along this river is therefore responsible for supporting not just these countries’ domestic crop production, but a disproportionate amount of international rice trade.

Escalating global temperatures have already begun to strain ASEAN rice output, as the Mekong River was undergoing its fourth year of consecutive drought by the start of 2022, a stressor that had pushed the region into some of its most dire water shortages in 60 years. Lower rainfall is now jeopardizing both rice output - itself an especially water-demanding crop grown within submerged paddies - as well as the livelihoods of over 65 million human beings that reside along the Mekong’s multinational route. One of the most pointed threats to the global agricultural trade, and the food security of outside nations, is therefore tied directly to southeast Asia’s faltering rainfall. As global temperatures continue to rise alongside accelerating CO2 output, one of the most dire consequences will be a collapse in a critical source of imported nutrition for countries spanning Oceania, to sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East alongside starvation for those living within countries for whom rice has long been a foundation of the national diet.

The periods of extreme rainfall that have begun to intersperse these correspondingly intense droughts can inflict their own stressors on farming communities and regional output. Deluges of water can overwhelm water flow infrastructure while displacing local populations that center their lives around rice production. Extreme rainfall throughout southeast Asia in 2011 produced the worst flooding Thailand had seen in fifty years, which threatened the loss of  6.4 million metric tons of rice paddy. Between these incidents of heavy rainfall and subsequent years of drought, Thailand’s rice exports have dropped continually - plummeting 32% from 11.2 million tons in 2018 to just 7.6 tons in 2019. This fell to 5.7 million tons in 2020, before an increase in the 2021/2022 growing season that was still significantly lower than the 11.2 million tons in 2018. The sharp 2019-2020 drop from which Thailand has yet to recover saw domestic production decrease to just 18 million in 2020, the second lowest annual total over the past decade. In light of escalating worldwide CO2 output and rising temperatures, this cumulatively downward trend in rice production along the Mekong is only likely to continue unless adaptive measures are taken.

Brazil

Brazil occupies a similar position to the United States insofar as it stands as both a disproportionate food exporter as well as a nation whose industrial policy is contributing significantly to climate disruption. It also stands alongside America’s as one of China’s primary agricultural suppliers. Brazil produces and exports more soybeans than any other country, with the overwhelming majority of this being directed into mainland China - with the country receiving approximately 70% of Brazil's 86-plus million tons of 2021 soybean exports. Brazil is also the world’s third largest corn producer and second largest exporter, with most of its corn exports directed to Iran, Spain, Japan, Vietnam, and Egypt, all regions that lack the domestic production adequate to meet local demand. Beyond its significant crop exports, Brazil is the world’s top exporter of beef and poultry and maintains a growing livestock industry that demands increasing grain inputs to sustain.

Brazil’s agricultural sector is built atop practices that are unsustainable and climatically destructive, with the country’s rising soybean, grain, and beef output all predicated upon unmitigated clearcutting. The Amazon rainforest is one of the world’s most impactful carbon sinks, with its plant life absorbing 600 million tons of CO2 annually - or 25% of all CO2 absorbed by the world’s forests -  in a process that is helping prevent what would otherwise become runaway global heating. Rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations and elevated temperatures are now producing a cyclical process whereby tree growth throughout the Brazilian Amazon is slowing while wildfires claim more hectares of forest on an annual basis, further decreasing its carbon absorption capacities and risking an escalating rate of climate destruction.

This process has only been exacerbated by aggressive deforestation under the administration of president Jair Bolsonaro, with Brazil’s current government having resumed forest destruction with the hope of bolstering beef and soybean output. Amazon clearcutting reached a record monthly high in 2022, bolstered largely by industrial policy focused on maximizing beef output and the production of grains used in factory farming. Approximately 17% of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed over the past fifty years, with the 20-25% range being the estimated point at which the death of the Amazon rainforest will be self-inflicting due to aridification, drought, and wildfires - only accelerating the death of what arboreal life remains and its ability to absorb humanity’s increasingly heavy CO2 output.

As a result, Brazil faces the possibility of a whiplash effect where efforts to bolster the global livestock industry result in runaway heating and other climate disruptions that undermine worldwide crop production, including Brazil’s significant domestic output. This would place unique stressors on states like China that are dependent on Brazil’s agricultural sector, creating a host of second-order effects such as supply chain interruptions and spiked commodity prices. The country’s tropical climate and clear risk of extreme heat will quickly jeopardize its role as a global breadbasket under near-future scenarios of unchecked climate change, with the country’s environmentally hostile policies amounting to an act of domestic self-destruction that threatens global food supply with it.

United States

The United States also occupies an especially impactful role as both a critical food exporter and overwhelming climate polluter. Of the over 1.5 trillion tons of net CO2 emissions humanity has released from 1750 to 2017, the United States contributed nearly 400 billion or approximately 25% of aggregate emissions. As a point of comparison, the European Union in its entirety (then including Great Britain) had contributed 353 billion tons or 22% of all emissions. While China currently stands as the second-largest aggregate emitter, its 200 billion tons by 2017 was still half that of the United States’. Despite China’s recent emergence as the world’s largest annual climate polluter, the United States’ cumulative emissions and still considerable yearly CO2 output will leave it unsurpassed in terms of singular contribution to the climate crisis through at least the middle of the 21st century. Taking these respective figures of 400 billion aggregate U.S. emissions and 200 billion for China, and their rounded 2020 annual output of 4.5 and 10.5 billion tons respectively, China would not surpass the United States in terms of sheer climatic damage until the 2050s assuming their CO2 output remains consistent.

Despite their shared culpability in both initiating and exacerbating the climate crisis, the United States’ agricultural economy is the practical inverse of China’s. America stands as one of the world’s major breadbasket regions, with U.S. agricultural self-sufficiency and the exceptional productivity of its farming sector allowing the country to support a disproportionate amount of the international grain trade. The United States is a top five exporter of wheat, corn, and soybeans, standing as the world’s top corn exporter and second largest soy exporter after Brazil. As a result, climatic disruptions or secondary political consequences that undermine U.S. food output will have potentially dangerous ramifications for less agriculturally self-sufficient trading partners. The United States also exports a considerable amount of beef and poultry, with harm to the country’s domestic grain supply likely to restrict its livestock industry as well.

Top destinations for U.S. wheat include Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Nigeria - all of which would face immediate food insecurity were U.S. wheat exports to falter or stop altogether. The Philippines and Japan drew 13.1% and 10.1% respectively of U.S. wheat exports in 2022. What little wheat production exists in both Japan and Korea is only decreasing year-over-year while domestic consumption is rising. This increasing demand for U.S. wheat exports across the Asia-Pacific has been significantly bolstered by China’s increasingly aggressive sourcing of American crop production. The net value of U.S. wheat that China imported increased over tenfold between 2019 and 2020 according to figures disclosed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

This upward trend of growing international demand for U.S. food exports is running headfirst into domestic climate pressures. The Great Plains Region, particularly Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, and Nebraska, produce nearly all high-quality red winter wheat (a variety of hardy and nutritious wheat intended for human consumption) grown in the United States. Wheat is particularly vulnerable to the kind of unseasonable temperature extremes - including warmer springtimes - that have become more common throughout the continental U.S.

As planetary temperatures rise and rainfall decreases, the Great Plains region is facing a particular likelihood of extreme drought leading to another Dust Bowl scenario where sustained parching not only desiccates crops, but strips away the nutrient-rich topsoil upon which corn and wheat depend. Analysis published in the 2018 National Climate Assessment projected that average temperatures across the Great Plains region could rise from 3.6 to 5.1 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050 and by 4.4 to 8.4 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100 compared to the 1976-2005 average. These would be accompanied by heatwaves and periods of extreme drought that lead to conditions similar to the 1930s Dust Bowl that become more of an ongoing trend rather than a particularly harsh but isolated episode. This would result in an aridification of the Great Plains that would threaten not just the food security of trading partners but that of the United States itself, leading to deepening crisis and global shortage as food demand increases while production drops.

While not as impactful on global grain trade as the fate of the midwest and Great Plains, California’s crop output is facing a particularly dire crisis in light of the state’s aridification and mounting water stress. California’s agricultural industry produces an exceptional amount of non-grain crops that tend to be far more water-hungry than wheat, including tomatoes, grapes, strawberries, pistachios, and walnuts, whose viability will be increasingly threatened by the state’s increasingly severe and prolonged droughts. Unusually harsh drought resulted in $1.2 billion in cost and lost productivity to California’s agricultural sector in 2021, forcing growers to either let fields run fallow or attempt to pump water from deeper wells. With California responsible for over 68% of all U.S. fruit and vegetable output, California’s infrastructure management and water policy choices will be overwhelming determinants of the health of America’s domestic food security and how effectively this vital region weathers the climate stressors to come.

European Union, Russia, and Ukraine

The climatic fate of Russia and Ukraine will be another major determinant of global food security, particularly in light Russian aggression into the region and both countries’ exceptional grain output. The expanse of fertile land spanning Ukraine and western Russia produces an inordinate amount of the world’s wheat and barley surplus alongside considerable corn and soybean harvests. Similar to the Mekong River, these areas have long contained the kind of geographic and climatic features conducive to producing exceptional grain output, with ecological threats to these crop-friendly conditions liable to have disproportionate effect on global food access. Europe as a whole contains the exact conditions needed to produce these mild-weather crops at scale, and its future output (or lack thereof) will have an overwhelming impact on dependent import partners.

Ukraine contains an exceptional concentration of rich black soil whose nutrient composition has been supported in large part by consistent rainfall that is neither torrential nor unduly sparse, allowing its quality to persist over centuries. Prolonged drought, heavy precipitation, or alternating combinations of both would degrade the very same soil conditions that have allowed Ukraine to emerge as one of the world’s single greatest agricultural producers. The southwestern portion of Russia that borders Ukraine contains a similar density of black soil, with its proximity leaving it vulnerable to climate stressors that afflict its neighbor state. Both France and Germany have breadbasket regions of their own that while not as productive as Ukraine and Russia, still raise a considerable amount of the continent’s wheat surplus.

As has been an escalating pattern across the Earth as a whole, Ukraine’s summer heat periods are becoming warmer while growing in duration. Extreme weather events have also begun to increase throughout Ukraine and southwestern Russia. While Ukraine’s overall annual precipitation changed relatively little between 1990-2010, its precipitation patterns are becoming increasingly uneven and breaking into more starkly pronounced periods of drought and heavy rain or snowfall. This increasingly erratic form of precipitation tends to be harmful to both soil quality and plant health, risking a growing threat to yields. The increased risk of flooding alongside growing shortages in available water throughout eastern European farmland will therefore risk a collapse in wheat access for primary trading partners such as Egypt (which received 17% of Ukraine’s wheat exports in 2021) as well as Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Turkey. As a matter of scale 35% of the calories consumed in Egypt come from wheat, about 70% of which is imported from Russia and Ukraine.

In contrast to certain agricultural producers whose primary trade partners sit within its near periphery, Ukraine and Europe’s dependent importers often rest farther afield - spreading the potential consequences of climate-induced damage well beyond Europe. Russia has also endeavored to increase its agricultural self-sufficiency while becoming a net food exporter, with any damage to this process liable to threaten both Russia’s domestic stability as well as the food security of major recipients of Russian wheat such as Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey. Russia now stands as the world’s single largest wheat export by raw tonnage, with climatic harm to its agricultural sector likely to export these harms into the Middle East and South Asia as a result.

The Ukraine Example

The aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine stands as a key example of what occurs when an external shock either undermines or halts agricultural exports from a critical region. Moscow’s aggression threw Ukraine into a state of immediate emergency under which key economic sectors - including agriculture - were either undermined or shuttered altogether in certain regions. Similarly, Russia’s ongoing attempts to capture portions of Ukraine and impose a zone of military force harmed the country’s ability to mobilize the logistics necessary to upkeep what was previously a steady state of agricultural exports.

Russia’s invasion occurred on the eve of Ukraine’s 2022 harvest season, interrupting what would have otherwise been typically bountiful yields and reliable exports. Prior to the invasion, Russia and Ukraine were estimated to have fed approximately 400 million people in total and provided 12% of all globally traded calories. While conclusive 2022 export totals could not be totaled by time of writing, the war had already resulted in such an abrupt shortage in the face of mounting global demand that wheat prices spiked nearly 6% by May 2022 according to the Chicago price index. This supply constriction was only exacerbated by India, another major wheat producer, deciding to avoid shipping its surplus amidst the shortfall - a decision likely driven in part by India’s concern over its own food security. The sudden loss of Ukraine’s exports combined with climate change beginning to undermine production from other major regions resulted in the cost of food rising to unprecedented heights worldwide.

This nominally regional crisis has been global in its implications, portending the increasing unaffordability and difficulty accessing food that will occur as greater swaths of the world suffer harsher and more enduring climatic stressors. Figures compiled by the United Nations indicated that overall global food prices had jumped 30% year-over-year by April 2022, due in large part to the sudden loss of Ukraine’s exports that spanned wheat to sunflower oil. This combination of sudden exports loss and rising energy prices have triggered a global inflation crisis as a result, threatening a recession even in farther-flung and food secure regions like the United States.

The consequences of export shortage for poorer nations and less food-secure areas will be even more dire - risking a deepening state of poverty and starvation throughout regions that can no longer rely on external supply. In the case of a poorer country like Yemen that imports 100% of all domestically consumed wheat and is suffering food shortages due in large part to a civil war stoked by a more powerful neighbor, an existing state of starvation has only become more dire in the wake of the Russian invasion. For nations like Lebanon that are already dealing with an internal economic crisis, the loss of Ukraine’s wheat exports are set to only worsen these domestic stressors and risk shortages and famine. The interconnectivity of worldwide food trade means the consequences of shortages in one locale will inevitably permeate the international system as a whole.

Supply Chains and Food Prices

The concentration of surplus agricultural output within a small array of well-suited regions will risk jarring interruptions to global food supply chains under conditions of increasing climatic stress. The same ecological and weather disruptions that harm breadbasket regions will undermine crop production within non self-sufficient nations, only increasing their need to import food from other countries. This process of global constriction will also sharply increase the price of food on the international market, producing a more severe and widespread version of the ricochet effect seen in the wake of the Ukraine war where a downturn in production within one region caused price increases even in areas not currently suffering shortages. The ultimate result will be a growing state of scarcity under situations of unchecked planetary warming, leading to a greater scope of potential famine the longer humanity’s CO2 emissions continue unchecked.

By definition, shortage in the face of sustained demand results in a sharp increase in commodity prices. With food being the most essential and persistent of all human needs, grain prices in particular are slated to have the most destabilizing effect on the world order as a whole. While the production of relative luxury goods like chocolate, coffee, and spices will also be degraded or even annihilated within certain regions past certain points of climatic duress, their cessation will not have the catastrophic impacts unleashed by worldwide grain shortages. Considering the disproportionate amount of global nutritional intake derived from grains, and the relative cost efficiency of their caloric production, the climatic fate of regions like Ukraine, the central United States, and Mekong River will be an overwhelming determinant of the survival of hundreds of millions and the stability of the international system as a whole.

The opportunity cost of allocating increasingly scarce freshwater and arable land towards the production of feed used in livestock culling will also result in meat becoming an expensive commodity whose continued production will only further drive up the price and scarcity of grains. This quandary rests upon the fundamental equation where multiple calories of grain are used to raise only a single calories of beef, pork, or poultry, with the global enforcement of this practice liable to be a serious famine risk unto itself. Factory farming and livestock husbandry will almost certainly undergo some form of phaseout or collapse in the near future, and efforts to enforce its continuity will endanger the lives of largely equatorial populations as a matter of process.

The global population is also slated to rise considerably throughout the remainder of the 21st century, especially throughout parts of the world that bear the least responsibility for the climate crisis. Wealthier nations continuing their CO2 output as developing countries escalate their emissions will inflict these consequences overwhelmingly on populations in the least wealthy nations or otherwise settled throughout the global periphery. This growing demand for sustenance in light of an ecological crisis inflicted by the industrial activity of more powerful countries will only contribute to shortages and rising food prices, as well as the resulting political consequences.

Political Consequences

“There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.” - Alfred Henry Lewis

Decline in worldwide food production will potentially be the 21st century’s greatest precipitator of global insecurity and destabilization. Even relatively mild scarcity will risk worldwide inflation and economic recession, as well as radical shifts in trade activity and import partnerships as individual countries - especially more powerful ones - reposition themselves to uphold their own food security at the potential cost of other states. Discontent over public policy, or simple outrage at inadequate response to the nutritional crisis, could motivate insurrection and hostility between populations and their governments. Even the precipitators of the food crisis itself, namely access to water resources and arable land, could risk conflict either active or cold between states attempting to weather an era of agricultural decline.

Some of the world’s most vital freshwater sources are multinational rivers whose flow upholds the agricultural sectors of interconnected states. The Mekong River starts from a source in China’s Tibetan plateau and winds through six individual countries, with its bounty responsible for an overwhelming amount of the global rice trade. The Indus River that distributes into India and Pakistan originates from the Tibetan Plateau as well, with access to its flow having been adjudicated through a 1960 water distribution treaty. The Ganges River that runs through India and Bangladesh plays a similarly essential agricultural role, with its distribution still a matter of dispute. 80% of the Colorado River’s water is dedicated to agriculture, irrigating 15% of the United State’s farmland just on its own - including a considerable portion of the nation’s wheat crop. The Colorado’s flow into Mexico has long been a point of contention between the two countries, with decreased water volume liable to result in the United States using all of its flow before it reaches its southern neighbor - harming Mexico’s agriculture and export partners in turn.

Contention over water sources will be destabilizing not just on its own terms, but will also result in the potential shutdown of agricultural sectors within countries who lose access. These national shortages would subsequently increase the scarcity and price of the agricultural products they export. In certain instances, even countries that are not major agricultural exporters would be forced to source nutrition from outside markets, only tightening global supply and further spiking commodity prices. This would result in a twofold front of internal discontent at food shortages and supply crisis alongside tension between governments that attempt to use wealth and national influence to strong-arm their own food access. Past a certain point, less eminent or geostrategically positioned nations might begin to suffer serious internal crises encompassing famine, economic collapse, and ensuing periods of mass displacement as their residents attempt to flee in search of nutrition and personal security.

A global food crisis will therefore be the precipitator of entire chains of collapse where the consequences of scarcity ricochet across the domains of conflict, economic disarray, mass displacement, and state fragmentation - initiating certain forms of destabilization while exacerbating others. No area of the climate crisis exists in isolation, and threats to the most essential of human needs will potentially tear out the stabilizing ripcord that upholds human civilization as we know it. Finding ways to not just eliminate humanity’s CO2 emissions, but mitigate our looming agricultural crisis, will therefore be foundational for preserving global stability, averting famine, and ensuring humanity is able to access the means of survival necessary to weather the upcoming decades without spiraling into a state of deepening political and social upheaval.

Adaptations

As a foundation, industrialized countries bear a paramount responsibility to eliminate their CO2 emissions, using existing development to transition towards sustainable economies whose activity no longer threatens global nutrition. This mission supersedes all others, and will determine the ensuing agricultural adaptations - both in terms of their needed scope, but how intensive and resource-demanding they will be. Any subsequent measures will need to build resiliency into the global agricultural supply, mitigating risk from declining production in certain areas while reducing the potential harm of extreme heat and natural disasters. The ultimate goal should be to either diminish or prevent the damage from upcoming climate shocks, ensuring economic upheaval and famine do not automatically follow ecological shifts.

One of the most foremost priorities will be management of water resources, particularly across areas with heavy agricultural output. Wasteful allocation of water towards luxury enterprises like golf courses will need to by definition cease in the face of scarcity, as will infrastructure and industrial processes that overuse water. This will necessitate not just prudent domestic policy, but international negotiations that either codify water treaties or refine existing ones, ensuring that multinational water sources are not blocked or overconsumed by countries closer to their origin. Whether in the case of the United States’ management of the Rio Grande and Colorado rivers that flow into Mexico, or China’s control of the Mekong’s water source in Tibet, these resources will need to be managed equitably to ensure that hoarding does not produce blowback in the form of scarcity and spiked food prices.

Another necessary measure will be the movement away from factory farming as a source of protein. The sheer volume of grain input needed to produce a single calorie of beef or pork is radically inefficient, and will only become more so under situations of diminished agricultural output. Livestock takes up 77% of global agricultural land but provides less than 20% of humanity's calories, while 63% of the crops we grow are fed to livestock. Directing water resources, farmland, and the resulting crop production towards animal culling will present a distinct opportunity cost, as this process significantly reduces the amount of grain that could otherwise enter the global market. Both America and Brazil’s mammoth corn and soy output, as well as China’s efforts to economically dominate Brazil and U.S. feed crop exports, represent major losses of nutrition that could otherwise be raised and distributed far more cheaply than cattle and swine.

Meat’s unsustainability is less a matter of personal preference and more one of hard logistics in the face of climatic strain. The author of this report still consumes fish and chicken, and does not relish the idea of their absence. A decrease in both global seafood stocks due to climate change as well as the strain on land and water resources needed to uphold factory farming will necessitate a move towards more efficient forms of nutrition - especially protein sources. The soybean harvests that are usually relegated toward producing feed are themselves an excellent source of protein that are, in effect, sacrificed to create a significantly smaller amount of protein than could be drawn from the beans themselves.

Protein transformation will therefore be one of the most effective ways of fighting the climate crisis and ensuring global food security. Current forecast models indicate that alternative proteins will represent 11% of all protein consumption by 2035 - a number that could be substantially increased with greater investment from both public and private entities. As noted in a 2022 report by the Boston Consulting Group:

“The food system accounts for 26% of current global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Animal agriculture, the largest GHG emitter within the food system, is responsible for 15% of global emissions, roughly matching the emissions from the transportation sector. If we remain on track for an 11% share for alternative proteins by 2035, we will see a reduction of 0.85 gigaton of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) worldwide by 2030—equal to decarbonizing 95% of the aviation industry.”

Developing alternative protein sources, whether derived from plant or lab-based sources, will be essentially for shaping not just a sustainable agricultural model, but ensuring humanity’s survival as a whole

Another potential safeguard will be the cultivation of crops less vulnerable to climatic stressors such as extreme heat, water shortage, and crop pests. Though often a target of controversy, genetically modified crops that have been developed for greater resiliency against events that would otherwise impede their growth or kill them outright will be useful for ensuring harvests remain steady. Similarly, planting rice varieties with water submergence resistance will allow them to withstand floods that would otherwise degrade annual yields. These efforts should focus on major grain crops whose absence cannot be borne without overwhelming shocks to global agriculture.

As an adjunct to this, the changing of planting and harvesting methods, including the adoption of techniques like no-till farming - a process under which farmland soil is no longer churned on a mass scale each planting season - can reduce the fuel and labor costs that go into mass-producing grain crops while retaining essential soil nutrients and sequestering carbon. Growing plants in a field during off seasons (known as “cover crops”) rather than letting a field go barren provides its own scope of resiliency benefits, including preventing soil erosion and nutrient runoff during times of increased rainfall that will help sustain yields for the main crop when it is planted later in the year.

Though no replacement for a broader sustainability program, countries should also consider bolstering domestic crop output to blunt the impact of export shortages. While these programs will require a certain degree of public investment, their costs will be significantly less than the economic shocks born of supply and trade deficits. The more evenly dispersed agricultural output becomes, the less extreme the impact from climatic shocks to breadbasket regions will be over the longer term. These programs can go hand-in-hand with efforts to grow larger amounts of unconventional yet nutritious and sustainable sources of food like oyster mushrooms that are both culinarily adaptive and a reliable source of plant protein. Humanity’s consumption patterns and agricultural practices will inevitably need to shift over the coming decades, and the more proactive and direct these efforts become, the less we will be overwhelmed by the far more radical cost of blind inaction.

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