Where in sub-Saharan Africa will climate change hit hardest? When it comes to food supply, prospects for much of the centre and east of the region are looking grim. Reduced crop yields along with a rising population mean that Tanzania, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are likely to face serious shortages [...]
Dwindling shrimp stocks off Greenland’s coast have local fishermen and authorities fretting that one of the island’s main sources of income, coined “pink gold”, could soon vanish. “We must sound the alarm bells because it would be a catastrophe for the island’s economy if the shrimp were to disappear,” Helle Siegstad, a biologist who heads [...]
A global search has begun for food crops with traits that are able to withstand changes to the climate.The project, co-ordinated by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, is searching national seed banks for “climate proof” varieties, including maize and rice. The team will screen seeds for natural resistance to extreme events, such as floods, droughts [...]
A new report produced by Greenpeace suggests that a review of recent scientific literature underlines that the most effective strategy to adapt agriculture to climate change is to increase biodiversity. Food Security and Climate Change: The Answer is Biodiversity, goes on to state that a mix of different crops and varieties in one field is [...]
Changing weather patterns in Uganda may lead to the extinction of the east African country’s key export, coffee, in coming decades, a report by British charity Oxfam states. Uganda is Africa’s second biggest coffee producer after Ethiopia and has become a major player in robusta coffee production since political unrest in the Ivory Coast slashed [...]
The prolonged drought in Australia’s Murray-Darling river basin is worsening and the country’s food-producing region may forever be changed by accelerating climate warming, Australian government officials announced. Despite good autumn rains, June inflows into the river basin were the lowest in more than a century on record and climate experts are predicting a 60-70 percent [...]
The European Commission recently hosted a high-level conference on the relationship between soil and climate change, and the role of soil management in climate change mitigation and adaptation. Organic matter plays a fundamental role supporting soil fertility, retaining water, sustaining biodiversity and regulating the global carbon cycle. But organic matter is in decline, and the [...]
A congressional field hearing convened on May 27 in Seattle heard about threats to American food and water supplies through the release of a new scientific report. The Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture, Land Resources, Water Resources, and Biodiversity in the United States presents the likely effects of climate change on the United States’ [...]
