agriculture

Global warming "is causing dangerous and widespread disruptions in nature and affecting the lives of billions of people around the world," said a UN climate change report on Monday. Hotter weather and shifts in rainfall are likely to reduce food production in North America and are a risk to food security, said a fact sheet on climate change's impacts on the continent.

Air pollution is the largest environmental mortality risk in the United States, responsible for 100,000 premature deaths annually, and one-fifth of those deaths are linked to agriculture, said research published by the National Academy of Sciences on Monday. Scientists from five universities …

After a weekend in which Trump lashed out angrily at China, calling its leader "an enemy," Trump was making nice again at the end of the G7 meeting on Monday, praising Chinese President Xi Jinping as a "great man" and saying prospects for a trade deal looked brighter. Soybean prices rose on the news.

Spring officially arrives March 20, three weeks from now, but spring-like weather is arriving two to three weeks early in the southern United States and "is likely to keep rolling north," says the U.S. Geological Survey. The Interior Department agency, which links early arrival of warm weather to climate change, says the change in timing poses challenges for human health and for food production.

Nearly 2 million acres — 3,100 square miles — of forested land were cleared for agriculture in the Brazilian Amazon in the year ending July 2016, while Bolivia has cut down 865,000 acres, equal to 1,351 square miles, annually, says The New York Times. "A decade after the 'Save the Rainforest' movement forced changes that dramatically slowed deforestation across the Amazon basin, activity is roaring back in some of the biggest expanses of forests in the world," said the newspaper.

Farmers, foresters, fishers and graziers generate one-fifth of the world's greenhouse gases, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in its annual State of Food and Agriculture report. FAO says the chief message of the 2016 edition is, "Agriculture must both contribute more to combating climate change while bracing to overcome its impacts."

Researchers say the biosphere, which includes the plants, animals and organisms on land around the world, has become a "net source" of greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide, reports the Washington Post, citing a study in the journal Nature.

The Paris agreement on climate change was "a game changer," according to the FAO director general for giving priority to food security in its preamble. But, notes Think Progress, the text of the agreement does not mention food security or agriculture at all.

There will be nearly two open jobs for every qualified graduate in the agriculture, food and natural resources sector in the next few years, says Harvest Public Media in summarizing a report by Purdue and the USDA. The gap between graduates and the estimated 60,000 jobs open annually for the next five years has "left the USDA, land grant universities and private industry scrambling to try and bridge the gap."

World Food Prize laureate Pedro Sanchez, a soils scientist, says Cuba "could be a very good market" for U.S. food companies, but adds that "it's not a one-way situation." In an interview with UC Food Observer, Sanchez said, "America has so much to learn from Cuba. Some of the agricultural techniques used in Cuba may benefit our food system."