The hardest evidence for a link so far comes from a team led by Marshall Burke of the University of California and FSE Research Associate, and co-authored with FSE Fellow David Lobell. They studied African wars from 1980 to 2002 and found that rising temperatures are indeed associated with crop failure, economic decline and a sharp rise in the likelihood of war. It predicted a “50% increase” in the chance of civil war in Africa by 2030.

Advances in high-yield agriculture over the latter part of the 20th century have prevented massive amounts of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere - the equivalent of 590 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide - according to a new study led by two Stanford Earth scientists.

The yield improvements reduced the need to convert forests to farmland, a process that typically involves burning of trees and other plants, which generates carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

The researchers estimate that if not for increased yields, additional greenhouse gas emissions from clearing land for farming would have been equal to as much as a third of the world's total output of greenhouse gases since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in 1850.

The researchers also calculated that for every dollar spent on agricultural research and development since 1961, emissions of the three principal greenhouse gases - methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide - were reduced by the equivalent of about a quarter of a ton of carbon dioxide - a high rate of financial return compared to other approaches to reducing the gases.

"Our results dispel the notion that modern intensive agriculture is inherently worse for the environment than a more 'old-fashioned' way of doing things," said Jennifer Burney, lead author of a paper describing the study that will be published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Adding up the impact

The researchers calculated emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, converting the amounts of the latter two gases into the quantities of carbon dioxide that would have an equivalent impact on the atmosphere, to facilitate comparison of total greenhouse gas outputs.

Burney, a postdoctoral researcher with the Program on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford, said agriculture currently accounts for about 12 percent of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Although greenhouse gas emissions from the production and use of fertilizer have increased with agricultural intensification, those emissions are far outstripped by the emissions that would have been generated in converting additional forest and grassland to farmland.

"Every time forest or shrub land is cleared for farming, the carbon that was tied up in the biomass is released and rapidly makes its way into the atmosphere - usually by being burned," she said. "Yield intensification has lessened the pressure to clear land and reduced emissions by up to 13 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year."

"When we look at the costs of the research and development that went into these improvements, we find that funding agricultural research ranks among the cheapest ways to prevent greenhouse gas emissions," said Steven Davis, a co-author of the paper and a postdoctoral researcher at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford.

To evaluate the impact of yield intensification on climate change, the researchers compared actual agricultural production between 1961 and 2005 with hypothetical scenarios in which the world's increasing food needs were met by expanding the amount of farmland rather than by the boost in yields produced by the Green Revolution.

"Even without higher yields, population and food demand would likely have climbed to levels close to what they are today," said David Lobell, also a coauthor and assistant professor of environmental Earth system science at Stanford.

"Lower yields per acre would likely have meant more starvation and death, but the population would still have increased because of much higher birth rates," he said. "People tend to have more children when survival of those children is less certain."

Avoiding the need for more farmland

The researchers found that without the advances in high-yield agriculture, several billion additional acres of cropland would have been needed.

Comparing emissions in the theoretical scenarios with real-world emissions from 1961 to 2005, the researchers estimated that the actual improvements in crop yields probably kept greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to at least 317 billion tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, and perhaps as much as 590 billion tons.

Without the emission reductions from yield improvements, the total amount of greenhouse gas pumped into the atmosphere over the preceding 155 years would have been between 18 and 34 percent greater than it has been, they said.

To calculate how much money was spent on research for each ton of avoided emissions, the researchers calculated the total amount of agricultural research funding related to yield improvements since 1961 through 2005. That produced a price between approximately $4 and $7.50 for each ton of carbon dioxide that was not emitted.

"The size and cost-effectiveness of this carbon reduction is striking when compared with proposed mitigation options in other sectors," said Lobell. "For example, strategies proposed to reduce emissions related to construction would cut emissions by a little less than half the amount that we estimate has been achieved by yield improvements and would cost close to $20 per ton."

The authors also note that raising yields alone won't guarantee lower emissions from land use change.

"It has been shown in several contexts that yield gains alone do not necessarily stop expansion of cropland," Lobell said. "That suggests that intensification must be coupled with conservation and development efforts.

"In certain cases, when yields go up in an area, it increases the profitability of farming there and gives people more incentive to expand their farm. But in general, high yields keep prices low, which reduces the incentive to expand."

The researchers concluded that improvement of crop yields should be prominent among a portfolio of strategies to reduce global greenhouse gases emissions.

"The striking thing is that all of these climate benefits were not the explicit intention of historical investments in agriculture. This was simply a side benefit of efforts to feed the world," Burney noted. "If climate policy intentionally rewarded these kinds of efforts, that could make an even bigger difference. The question going forward is how climate policy might be designed to achieve that."

David Lobell is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and at the Woods Institute for the Environment. The Program on Food Security and the Environment is a joint project of the Woods Institute and the Freeman Spogli Institute. The Precourt Institute for Energy and FSE provided funding for Jennifer Burney's research on agriculture and energy.

The impact of global warming on food prices and hunger could be large over the next 20 years, according to a new Stanford University study. Researchers say that higher temperatures could significantly reduce yields of wheat, rice and maize - dietary staples for tens of millions of poor people who subsist on less than $1 a day. The resulting crop shortages would likely cause food prices to rise and drive many into poverty.  

But even as some people are hurt, others would be helped out of poverty, says Stanford agricultural scientist David Lobell.

Lobell discussed the results of his research on Feb 19 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego.

"Poverty impacts depend not only on food prices but also on the earnings of the poor," said Lobell, a center fellow at Stanford's Program on Food Security and the Environment (FSE). "Most projections assume that if prices go up, the amount of poverty in the world also will go up, because poor people spend a lot of their money on food. But poor people are pretty diverse. There are those who farm their own land and would actually benefit from higher crop prices, and there are rural wage laborers and people that live in cities who definiztely will be hurt."

Lobell and his colleagues recently conducted the first in-depth study showing how different climate scenarios could affect incomes of farmers and laborers in developing countries.

Household incomes

In the study, Lobell, former FSE researcher Marshall Burke and Purdue University agricultural economist Thomas Hertel focused on 15 developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Hertel has developed a global trade model that closely tracks the consumption and production of rice, wheat and maize on a country-by-country basis. The model was used to project the effects of climate change on agriculture within 20 years and the resulting impact on prices and poverty.

Using a range of global warming forecasts, the researchers were able to project three different crop-yield scenarios by 2030:

• "Low-yield" - crop production is toward the low end of expectations.
• "Most likely" - projected yields are consistent with expectations.
• "High-yield" - production is higher than expected.

"One of the limitations of previous forecasts is that they don't consider the full range of uncertainties - that is, the chance that things could be better or worse than we expect," Lobell said. "We provided Tom those three scenarios of what climate change could mean for agricultural productivity. Then he used the trade model to project how each scenario would affect prices and poverty over the next 20 years.

"The impacts we're talking about are mainly driven by warmer temperatures, which dry up the soil, speed up crop development and shut down biological processes, like photosynthesis, that plants rely on," he added. "Plants in general don't like it hotter, and in many climate forecasts, the temperatures projected for 2030 would be outside the range that crops prefer."

Results

The study revealed a surprising mix of winners and losers depending on the projected global temperature. The "most likely" scenario projected by the International Panel on Climate Change is that global temperatures will rise 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) by 2030. In that scenario, the trade model projected relatively little change in crop yields, food prices and poverty rates

But under the "low-yield" scenario, in which temperatures increase by 2.7 F (1.5 C), the model projects a 10 to 20 percent drop in agricultural productivity, which results in a 10 to 60 percent rise in the price of rice, wheat and maize. Because of these higher prices, the overall poverty rate in the 15 countries surveyed was expected to rise by 3 percent.

However, an analysis of individual countries revealed a far more complicated picture. In 11 of the 15 countries, poor people who owned their own land and raised their own crops actually benefited from higher food prices, according to the model. In Thailand, for example, the poverty rate for people in the non-agricultural sector was projected to rise 5 percent, while the rate for self-employed farmers dropped more than 30 percent - in part because, as food supplies dwindled, the global demand for higher-priced crops increased.

"If prices go up and you're tied to international markets, you could be lifted out of poverty quite considerably," Lobell explained. "But there are a lot of countries, like Bangladesh, where poor people are either in urban areas or in rural areas but don't own their own land. Countries like that could be hurt quite a lot. Then there are semi-arid countries - like Zambia, Mozambique and Malawi - where even if prices go up and people own land, productivity will go down so much that it can't make up for those price increases. In the 'low-yield' scenario, those countries would see higher poverty rates across all sectors."

Under the "high-yield" scenario, in which global temperatures rise just 0.9 F (0.5 C), crop productivity increased. The resulting food surplus led to a 16 percent drop in prices, which could be detrimental to farm owners. In Thailand, the poverty rate among self-employed farmers was projected to rise 60 percent, while those in the non-agriculture sector saw a slight drop in poverty. In Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi and Uganda, poverty in the non-farming sector was projected to decline as much as 5 percent.

Risk management

Lobell said that, although the likelihood of the "low-yield" or "high-yield" scenario occurring is only 5 percent, it is important for policymakers to consider the full range of possibilities if they want to help countries adapt to climate change and ultimately prevent an increase in poverty and hunger. 

"It's like any sort of risk management or insurance program," he said. "You have to have some idea of the probability of events that have a big consequence. It's also important to keep in mind that any change, no matter how extreme, will benefit some households and hurt others."

The Program on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford is an interdisciplinary research and teaching program that generates policy solutions to the persistent problems of global hunger and environmental damage from agricultural practices worldwide. The program is jointly run by Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

While Americans' appetite for seafood continues to grow, most of us know little about where our fish comes from or how it was produced. In California, more than half of our seafood comes from aquaculture, often imported from fish farms in other countries. Just as most chickens, pigs and cows are raised in tightly confined, intensive operations, so too are many farm-raised fish.

But raising fish in tight quarters carries some serious risks. Disease and parasites can be transmitted from farmed to wild fish. Effluents, antibiotics and other chemicals can be discharged into surrounding waters. Nonnative farmed fish can escape into wild fish habitat. And a reliance on wild-caught fish in aquaculture feed can deplete food supplies for other marine life.

These environmental impacts have been evident in many other countries with intensive marine fish farming. In Chile, where industry expansion was prioritized over environmental protection, salmon aquaculture has collapsed, causing a major blow to what had been one of Chile's leading exports. Tens of thousands of people are now jobless in southern Chile, where the salmon farming industry once boomed.

If aquaculture is to play a responsible role in the future of seafood here at home, we must ensure that the "blue revolution" in ocean fish farming does not cause harm to the oceans and the marine life they support.

In December, Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) introduced in the House the National Sustainable Offshore Aquaculture Act, a bill that addresses the potential threats of poorly regulated fish farming in U.S. ocean waters. Her bill shares many of the features of a California state law, the Sustainable Oceans Act, which was written by state Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006. That legislation regulates fish farming in state waters, which extend three miles off the California coast. At present, all aquaculture operations in California and the U.S. are located just a few miles offshore.

If the U.S. and other states follow California's lead, we may be able to reward innovation and responsibility in aquaculture and at the same time prevent the kind of boom-and-bust development that happened in Chile. Unlike previous attempts to legislate fish farming at the national level, the Capps bill would ensure that U.S. aquaculture in federal waters, which extend from three to 200 miles offshore, establishes as a priority the protection of wild fish and functional ecosystems. It would ensure that industry expansion occurs only under the oversight of strong, performance-based environmental, socioeconomic and liability standards.

The bill also would preempt ecologically risky, piecemeal regulation of ocean fish farming in different regions of the U.S. Indeed, regulation efforts are already underway in many states, with no consistent standards to govern the industry's environmental or social performance. If these piecemeal regional initiatives move forward, it will get much more difficult to create a sustainable national policy for open-ocean aquaculture.

Previous federal bills introduced in 2005 and 2007 were fundamentally flawed -- and ultimately did not pass -- because they put the goal of aquaculture expansion far above that of environmental protection. Now, for the first time, a bill has been introduced that would demonstrably protect marine ecosystems, fishing communities and seafood consumers from the risks of poorly regulated open-ocean aquaculture.

The Obama administration is currently developing a national policy to guide the development of U.S. aquaculture. The administration would do well to embrace the vision articulated by Capps and Simitian for a science-based and precautionary approach to help ensure a responsible future for U.S. ocean fish farming.

Rosamond L. Naylor is director of the program on food security and the environment at Stanford University. George H. Leonard is director of the aquaculture program at the Ocean Conservancy in Santa Cruz.

Copyright The Los Angeles Times

Changes in temperature due to climate change over the next few decades will put considerable pressure on crop production in already vulnerable areas of sub-Saharan Africa, states a new study from Stanford University's Program on Food Security and the Environment published this week in Environmental Research Letters. The study found that average yields for five staple crops - maize, sorghum, millet, groundnuts, and cassava -will likely be harmed by warming without successful adaptation

"In all cases except cassava, we estimate a very high (95%) probability that damages would exceed 7%, and a low (5%) probability that they exceed 27%," said co-author David Lobell, an assistant professor of Environmental Earth System Science and center fellow at the Program on Food Security and the Environment, a joint program of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford.

The findings present a surprisingly robust picture of how weather affects yields in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and suggest there is a real threat of large near-term impacts in this food-insecure part of the world. SSA has the highest proportion of malnourished populations in the world, with one in three people chronically hungry.

"These are very resource scarce countries," noted lead author Wolfram Schlenker, assistant professor of economics at Columbia University, "and a reliable picture of what climate change will mean for crop yields can be very useful in allocating investments."

Panel dataset approach

Up to this point, the scientific basis for estimating production risks and prioritizing investments has been quite limited. "Many approaches have been limited by a lack of reliable data on such things as soil properties, historical agricultural data, and management practices," said Lobell. "This has not inspired a lot of confidence in the estimates, and has caused many to question some high-level statements about risks of climate change to Africa. The results presented in this study are not as disastrous as some have claimed, but they are big enough to suggest that major adaptations are needed in this region."

Schlenker and Lobell utilized a different approach than had been tried, by matching country-level yields (ton/ha) with various weather measurements for 1961-2002. By combining all the countries into a panel dataset, they were able to see a much clearer signal of weather than would be possible looking at data from individual countries.

"The observational approach enabled us to measure how farmers react to weather shocks given various, shared constraints such as credit markets and lack of required inputs," said Schlenker. "This is very difficult to do with a field trial approach."

Future research and investments

The authors emphasize that the results are not predictions of what will happen, but of what the potential stakes are if we don't take the threat seriously. Varieties with greater drought and heat tolerance, improved and expanded irrigation systems, rainwater harvesting technologies, disaster relief efforts, and insurance programs will likely all be needed to foster agricultural development and adaptation to warming.

"There is arguably little scope for substantial poverty reductions in SSA without large improvements in agricultural productivity," conclude the authors. "The findings presented here suggest that this challenge will get even more difficult in a warming climate. Rather than a cause for despair, we view this as an added incentive for serious, immediate, and sustained investments in agricultural productivity in SSA."

This work was supported by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The Program on Food Security and the Environment is jointly run by the Woods Institute for the Environment and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford.

Roughly a billion people around the world continue to live in state of chronic hunger and food insecurity. Unfortunately, efforts to improve their livelihoods must now unfold in the context of a rapidly changing climate, in which warming temperatures and changing rainfall regimes could threaten the basic productivity of the agricultural systems on which most of the world's poor directly depend. But whether climate change represents a minor impediment or an existential threat to development is an area of substantial controversy, with different conclusions wrought from different methodologies and based on different data.

This book aims to resolve some of the controversy by exploring and comparing the different methodologies and data that scientists use to understand climate's effects on food security. It explains the nature of the climate threat, the ways in which crops and farmers might respond, and the potential role for public and private investment to help agriculture adapt to a warmer world. This broader understanding should prove useful to both scientists charged with quantifying climate threats, and policy-makers responsible for crucial decisions about how to respond.