I chat about new research on the weakest link and greatest vulnerability risk to our global food supply.
“The future of global food production is under threat as temperature rises will impact farmers’ physical capacity to work, a new study has revealed.”
“Assessments consistently conclude that climate change will reduce crop yields making food security challenges worse,” says study lead Professor Gerald Nelson, of the University of Illinois.
“But it’s not only crops and livestock that are affected. The agricultural workers who plant, till, and harvest much of the food we need will also suffer due to heat exposure, reducing their ability to undertake work in the field.”
“Published in the journal Global Change Biology, the study, titled “Global reductions in manual agricultural work capacity due to climate change,” involved using computational models to predict the physical work capacity (PWC)—defined as “an individuals work capacity relative to an environment without any heat stress”—under different predicted climate change scenarios.”
“The maximum work capacity achievable by individuals in a cool climate was used as the benchmark for the study—representing 100% physical work capacity.
Reductions in capacity mean people are limited in what they can physically do, even if they are motivated to work. This may translate as farmers needing extra workers to do the same job, or if these are not available, then reducing their crop sizes.
Agricultural workers are already feeling the heat, the study reveals, with half the world’s cropland farmers estimated to be working below 86% capacity in “recent past” (1991–2010) climate conditions.”
Report: “Global food production at risk as rising temperatures threaten farmers’ physical ability to work, new study finds”: https://phys.org/news/2024-01-global-food-production-temperatures-threaten.html
Peer-reviewed scientific paper: “Global reductions in manual agricultural work capacity due to climate change”: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.17142
“Abstract
Manual outdoor work is essential in many agricultural systems. Climate change will make such work more stressful in many regions due to heat exposure. The physical work capacity metric (PWC) is a physiologically based approach that estimates an individual’s work capacity relative to an environment without any heat stress. We computed PWC under recent past and potential future climate conditions. Daily values were computed from five earth system models for three emission scenarios and three time periods. Average daily PWC values were aggregated for the entire year, the growing season, and the warmest 90-day period of the year. Under recent past climate conditions, the growing season PWC was below 0.86 (86% of full work capacity) on half the current global cropland. With end-century/SSP5-8.5 thermal conditions this value was reduced to 0.7, with most affected crop-growing regions in Southeast and South Asia, West and Central Africa, and northern South America. Average growing season PWC could falls below 0.4 in some important food production regions such as the Indo-Gangetic plains in Pakistan and India. End-century PWC reductions were substantially greater than mid-century reductions. This paper assesses two potential adaptions—reducing direct solar radiation impacts with shade or working at night and reducing the need for hard physical labor with increased mechanization. Removing the effect of direct solar radiation impacts improved PWC values by 0.05 to 0.10 in the hottest periods and regions. Adding mechanization to increase horsepower (HP) per hectare to levels similar to those in some higher income countries would require a 22% increase in global HP availability with Sub-Saharan Africa needing the most. There may be scope for shifting to less labor-intensive crops or those with labor peaks in cooler periods or shift work to early morning.”
Basically, when we think about heat waves and droughts reducing crop yields, we need to realize that long before food production yields are crushed by climate change, our ability to grow food is most threatened by heat and humidity preventing farmers from planting, tilling, and harvesting crops in the fields.
“Manual outdoor labor is essential in many agricultural systems worldwide. The interactions of the thermal environment (defined by air temperature, solar radiation, humidity, and wind speed) with metabolic activity and clothing can contribute to heat stress and affect the health and productivity of outdoor workers. Physical work capacity (PWC) begins to decline measurably around 20°C ambient temperature and further diminishes as temperature and humidity rise and exposure to solar radiation increases, while cooling from wind can reduce these effects.”
An eye opening new finding; something else to worry about:)
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by paulhenrybeckwith
1 comment
Seems like a self solving problem: if crops won’t grow than no needs to work the fields and no danger to farmers!
yes, that’s sarcasm.