On Friday, British and American experts have warned that acute weather conditions caused by intense storms and heatwaves will lead to frequent and severe food shortages as the global climate and food supply systems are changing. They experts said that the influence on the world’s food supplies is so high and the increase in extreme weather events so rampant that food shortages that are likely to occur once in 100 years under past conditions, may in future occur as often as once in every 30 years.
“The likelihood of having a weather-related food shrinkage is blooming large, and the magnitude of that shock is also on arise, And as these episodes become more frequent, the vitality for doing something to counter it becomes even greater.” said Tim Benton, a professor of population ecology at Leeds University who presented a report commissioned by the British government.
The report, prepared by the UK-US Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience, also cautioned that spontaneous national responses to production drops, such as the forcing export or import bans on certain foods or crops, risk aggravate a problem and causing surges in food prices.
The condition spirals out of control If a worst case institutional responses are clubbed together with a worst case production shock says Rob Bailey, research director for energy, environment and resources at Britain’s Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
The experts focused at production of the world’s most important crops like maize, soybean, wheat and rice and how extreme weather conditions might impact it in future. Since most of the production of these important four crops comes from a small number of countries such as China, the United States and India, varied weather occurrences in these regions will have the great impact on global food supplies, they remarked.
