Farmland and climate change are related in the way that ‘global warming will make it harder to feed the world in 2050.’ Higher temperatures are feared to possibly ‘turn arid shrub lands into deserts while improving the growing season in colder steppes.’

There are other possibilities as to the effect of global warming: evaporation could occur more from plants, and rains could devastate some places as it is already happening. In actuality, ‘extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere should help plants grow faster, though whether this actually happens may also depend on the amount of nitrogen in the soil.’

The Washington, DC think-tank agency International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) offers some profound conclusions based on current reality: ‘In parts of the developing world, some crop yields in 2050 could be only half of their 2000 levels. Irrigation may not help: climate change will hit irrigated systems harder than rain-fed ones. And the hope that gainers from climate change will outweigh losers looks vain: the damage from higher temperatures and erratic rainfall will be too big.’

The IFPRI also found that ‘irrigated wheat in 2050 would yield 34% less than in 2000.’ There would also be 19% and 14% production decline for irrigated rice, as ‘scientists in South Africa recently said the region could see a 50% fall in cereals productivity by 2080.’

On the other hand, the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) claims that ‘the climate would be hotter and wetter, with rainfall about 10% heavier than now. NCAR sees Russia and Canada heating up more, while Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) forecasts that there would be 2% more rain, and that the sharpest increases in temperature will be in southern Africa.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) still stands by its assumptions that ‘the world will be releasing roughly twice as much CO2 in 2050 as it does now’ and that ‘the oceans’ surface temperature will rise by around 1.6°C by 2050.’

Via Economist.com