The agriculture system is under pressure to increase production every year as global population expands and more people move from a diet mostly made up of grains, to one with more meat, dairy and processed foods. This book uses a decade of primary research to examine how weather and climate, as measured by variations in the growing season using satellite remote sensing, has affected agricultural production, food prices and access to food in food-insecure regions of the world. The author reviews environmental, economics and multidisciplinary research to describe the connection between global environmental change, changing weather conditions and local staple food price variability. The context of the analysis is the humanitarian aid community, using the guidance of the USAID Famine Early Warning Systems Network and the United Nation’s World Food Program in their response to food security crises. These organizations have worked over the past three decades to provide baseline information on food production through satellite remote sensing data and agricultural yield models, as well as assessments of food access through a food price database. These datasets are used to describe the connection, and to demonstrate the importance of these metrics in overall outcomes in food-insecure communities.

Global climate studies show that not only temperatures are increasing and precipitation levels are becoming more varied, all projections indicate these trends will continue. It is therefore imperative that we understand changes in climate over agricultural areas and their impacts on agriculture production and food security. This study presents new analysis on the impact of changing climate on agriculture and food security, by examining the evidence on recent climate variability and extremes over agricultural areas and the impact of these on agriculture and food security. It shows that more countries are exposed to increasing climate variability and extremes and the frequency (the number of years exposed in a five-year period) and intensity (the number of types of climate extremes in a five-year period) of exposure over agricultural areas have increased. The findings of this study are compelling and bring urgency to the fact that climate variability and extremes are proliferating and intensifying and are contributing to a rise in global hunger. The world’s 2.5 billion small-scale farmers, herders, fishers, and forest-dependent people, who derive their food and income from renewable natural resources, are most at risk and affected. Actions to strengthen the resilience of livelihoods and food systems to climate variability and extremes urgently need to be scaled up and accelerated.

Climate Change and Food Security Climate change and agriculture are interrelated processes, both of which take place on a global scale. Global warming is projected to have significant impacts on conditions affecting agriculture, including temperature, carbon dioxide, glacial run-off, precipitation and the interaction of these elements. These conditions determine the carrying capacity of the biosphere to produce enough food for the human population and domesticated animals. The overall effect of climate change on agriculture will depend on the balance of these effects. Assessment of the effects of global climate changes on agriculture might help to properly anticipate and adapt farming to maximize agricultural production. At the same time, agriculture has been shown to produce significant effects on climate change, primarily through the production and release of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, but also by altering the Earth’s land cover, which can change its ability to absorb or reflect heat and light, thus contributing to radiative forcing. Sustained and systematic attention is crucial if we are to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe — A 2009 ICTSD-IPC study by Jodie Keane suggests that climate change could cause farm output in sub-Saharan Africa to decrease by 12 percent by 2080 although in some African countries this figure could be as much as 60 percent, with agricultural exports declining by up to one fifth in others. Adapting to climate change could cost the agriculture sector $14bn globally a year, the study finds. The book has a comprehensive account of climate change with possible projections on food security in the world. Global scenarios of extreme climatic events and the corresponding probable climatic parameters in the years to come are discussed elaborately. Contents: • Introduction • Historical Perspective • Responses to Global Warming • Governmental and Intergovernmental Action • Challenges to Achieving Food Security • Climate Change and Agriculture • Global Food Security under Climate Change • Climate Change and World Food Supply • The World Food Trade Model • Fisheries and Climate Change • The Climate Change - Agriculture Conundrum • Impact of Climate Change on Indian Agriculture • Effects on the Regional Vegetation-atmosphere Water Vapour Exchange

Global climatic change has resulted in new and unpredictable patterns of precipitation and temperature, the increased frequency of extreme weather events and rising sea levels. These changes impact all four aspects of food security – availability, accessibility, stability of supply and appropriate nourishment – as well as the entire food system – food production, marketing, processing, distribution and prices. Climate Change and Food Security focuses on the challenge to food security posed by a changing climate. The book brings together many of the critical global concerns of climate change and food security through local cases based on empirical studies undertaken in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. Focusing on risk reduction and the complex nature of vulnerability to climate change, the book includes chapters on the responsiveness of farmers based on traditional knowledge, as well as the critical phenomenon of food insecurity in the urban setting. Other chapters are devoted to efforts made to strengthen resilience through long-term development, with interventions at the regional and national levels of scale. It also examines cross-cutting themes that underlie the strategies employed to achieve food security, including equity, gender, livelihoods and governance. This edited volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, food security, environmental management and sustainable development.

This latest Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will again form the standard reference for all those concerned with climate change and its consequences, including students, researchers and policy makers in environmental science, meteorology, climatology, biology, ecology, atmospheric chemistry and environmental policy.

Updates for many countries have made it possible to estimate hunger in the world with greater accuracy this year. In particular, newly accessible data enabled the revision of the entire series of undernourishment estimates for China back to 2000, resulting in a substantial downward shift of the series of the number of undernourished in the world. Nevertheless, the revision confirms the trend reported in past editions: the number of people affected by hunger globally has been slowly on the rise since 2014. The report also shows that the burden of malnutrition in all its forms continues to be a challenge. There has been some progress for child stunting, low birthweight and exclusive breastfeeding, but at a pace that is still too slow. Childhood overweight is not improving and adult obesity is on the rise in all regions. The report complements the usual assessment of food security and nutrition with projections of what the world may look like in 2030, if trends of the last decade continue. Projections show that the world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 and, despite some progress, most indicators are also not on track to meet global nutrition targets. The food security and nutritional status of the most vulnerable population groups is likely to deteriorate further due to the health and socio economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report puts a spotlight on diet quality as a critical link between food security and nutrition. Meeting SDG 2 targets will only be possible if people have enough food to eat and if what they are eating is nutritious and affordable. The report also introduces new analysis of the cost and affordability of healthy diets around the world, by region and in different development contexts. It presents valuations of the health and climate-change costs associated with current food consumption patterns, as well as the potential cost savings if food consumption patterns were to shift towards healthy diets that include sustainability considerations. The report then concludes with a discussion of the policies and strategies to transform food systems to ensure affordable healthy diets, as part of the required efforts to end both hunger and all forms of malnutrition.