global food production
Climate change boosts risks to crops from pests
Plant diseases and invasive insects take a huge toll — up to 40 percent — on global crop production, with annual losses worth nearly $300 billion. Climate change could make that worse by opening up new areas to plant pests, according to a scientific review released on Wednesday.
Food prices climb for 10th month in a row
Global food prices are the highest they've been since June 2014, according to a monthly index compiled by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The Food Price Index rose by 2.1 percent, its 10th increase in a row, said the FAO on Thursday.
Climate change slowed growth in agricultural productivity
Global agricultural productivity is 21 percent lower than it could have been without climate change, according to research published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Thursday. The reduction is the equivalent of losing seven years of the gains recorded in farm productivity since the 1960s, say the researchers.
Food system responsible for one-third of greenhouse gases
The world food system, stretching from farm field and feedlot to grocery store and waste management facility, generates 34 percent of the greenhouse gases created by human activity, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization said this week.
Rebound in Europe to fuel largest-ever global wheat crop
World wheat production will rise for the third year in a row, with growers harvesting a record-large crop this year, say forecasts from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Grains Council. While they differ slightly on how large the new crop, months away from harvest, will be, they agree Europe will be key.
In ‘final report card,’ world fails to meet biodiversity goals, says UN
In 2010, global leaders set 20 goals for preserving biodiversity worldwide in the decade ahead. Today, none of the targets has been met fully and only six are even partially achieved, said the United Nations in "a final report card" on the effort. "Biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate,” said the Global Biodiversity Outlook 5 report, “and the pressures driving the decline are intensifying." Still, the UN said, "it is not too late to slow, halt, and reverse current trends." <strong> (No paywall) </strong>
Big jump in world demand to offset largest corn crop ever
The world is headed toward the biggest corn harvest in history, 4 percent larger than last year, at 1.166 billion tonnes, said the International Grains Council on Thursday.
Diet for a healthy planet: Half the red meat and sugar, more grains, nuts, produce
A three-year collaboration by three dozen experts in nutrition, agriculture, economics, and the environment says it has solved one of the world’s great challenges: how to feed an expected 10 billion people at mid-century without imperiling future food production. The answer is the “planetary health diet.”
Studies: Corn at risk from climate change
Two newly published studies highlight the risk that climate change could lead to the failure of corn crops around the world and reduce the nutritional content of vegetables, reports InsideClimate News. While looking at different subjects, the studies "reiterate the prospects of food shocks and malnutrition with unchecked global warming."
Can the Arctic’s icy waters solve aquaculture’s sustainability problems?
In April, at a smelting factory in Arctic Norway, the world’s largest photobioreactor will begin churning out fish feed grown on pollution. The feed, or microalgae, will provide a critical source of omega oils for prized Norwegian farmed salmon, while digesting carbon dioxide from industrial smoke piped through the bioreactor, says Hans-Christian Eilertsen, a marine biologist with the Arctic University of Norway.
World grain output sets record, global stockpile to be largest ever
The world’s farmers harvested a record 2.64 billion tonnes of wheat, rice, and feed grains in 2017, estimated the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. It was the group’s second sharp upward adjustment of its global production figure in two months.
Largest global grain harvest ever keeps prices steady
The bigger-than-expected corn crop in the United States is helping to drive world cereal grain production to a record for the second year in a row, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Researchers identify gene that will make hybrid wheat easier to breed
Hybrid seeds are widely used by corn and rice farmers because they boost yields. Researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia, one of the world's leading wheat-producing nations, say they have identified a naturally occurring gene in wheat that, when turned off, allows cross-pollination, essential for hybrids, while preventing self-pollination.
First decline in five years is forecast for global grain stocks
The world’s grain stockpile will shrink nearly 7 percent by the end of the new marketing year, forecasts the International Grains Council. The reason, said the group, is a smaller harvest—down 3 percent—and the second year of record-high consumption.
For third month, world food prices decline in FAO index
The FAO Food Price Index dropped by 1.8 percent in April, pulled down by lower sugar, cereal, dairy, and vegetable oil prices. Those drops were offset in part by higher meat prices.
Global cropland growth is mostly in tropics, challenging U.S. role
The world has added 398 million harvested acres of food grains, feed grains, and oilseeds since the start of the 21st century, mostly in tropical nations, said four analysts writing at the farmdoc daily blog. “Only with significant changes in its production technology” would U.S. agriculture, accustomed to being a world leader in row crops, benefit from this expansion, they said.