Climate news and knowledge#6

Climate News and Knowledge is our fortnightly round up of some of the main stories covering climate change and sustainable farming.

More CO2 = higher yields? Think again.

It’s been said that climate change had a silver lining for UK farmers – a sunnier, warmer climate and more CO2 in the atmosphere would mean higher productivity and yields. But recent trends show that plants don’t necessarily take up the extra CO2 as predicted. The higher temperatures and droughts reduce their growth rates and increase respiration, so they don’t take the CO2 in to convert to biomass. Find out more here.

Black gold on the wane

The UK Government has just published its first report on biochar, concluding that the idea is still beset with scientific uncertainties. Biochar has been described by some to be a game-changing solution to locking up millions of tonnes of carbon at the same time as raising the fertility of degraded agricultural soils – but somehow it’s still lacking credibility. More research required.

Solutions are in the extreme, but what’s in between?

Last week scientists revealed they had unraveled the genetic sequence to the wheat plant. This prompted talk that the future of food production is within our grasp because higher yielding and drought and salt resistant traits could now be uncovered. At the same time, New Holland unveiled its hydrogen powered ‘zero emission tractor of the future’. The tractor releases 57.16 tonnes of CO2 over its 30-year life span compared to 757 tonnes for a standard tractor. These two revelations are both technical fixes or modifications to improve the sustainability of food production. But many would argue the cause of the problem is the nature of the food system itself, so let’s address that rather than adapting already problematic practices. Which is the right approach?

Commodity traders cashing in on farmer tweeters…

At Farming Futures we’re big fans of Twitter and the power of technology to share information and learning between farmers. But Twitter could well be playing a more powerful role in the sector than any of us previously thought. One US farmer has discovered that many of his committed followers are commodity traders looking to gather insight on what’s likely to happen to the market in this current period of instability. Information on local weather conditions and crop yields appears much faster on Twitter than news services and so enables traders to get ahead of the game.

Food security - impact of extreme weather is tough to handle, but what about impact of China?

The impacts of the Russian drought still remains high on the agenda, with the prospect of a re-run of the 2008 price spikes seeming more likely despite claims over healthy reserves. Described as a ‘very tight situation’ by the FAO, the declaration by Putin that the export ban will last until after next year’s harvest has not eased concerns over looming shortfalls. In fact riots have already broken out in Mozambique as a result of high food and utility prices, but we’re still nowhere near the 2008 scenario. The rise of China has been destined to have profound implications on the global food system. Projected to import over 1m tonnes of grain this year (double that of 2008-2009 and the highest since the 1994-1995 crop failures), China now has  to re-think its traditional self-sufficiency in grain. The impacts of climate variability and extreme weather on food production by themselves are significant, but when coupled with wider social and economic shifts, we’re in a very different ball game.