TRENDS IN NATIONAL FOOD SECURITY AND THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE - Food Security, Food Prices and Climate Variability - page 73

2. Climate change will offset some of the benefits of economic growth. The scenarios show

that climate change will cause an increase between 8.5 and 10.3 percent in the number
of malnourished children, some of which is due to increased food prices by 2050.

3. International trade plays an essential role in compensating for various climate change

impacts at the national level. Thus trade in food allows countries that produce more to
offset deficits in regions that produce less, enabling more people to access food than is
possible without effective and efficient trade.

4. Properly targeted agricultural productivity investments that enable increased yields in

regions with very low productivity can mitigate the impact of climate change and
enhance food security. Just as in the past, the model shows that productivity increases can
reduce the number of malnourished children by 2050 by 16.2 percent relative to a base-
line. By increasing productivity you get more food from the same land, enabling an
increase in income and food available for the same number of people, driving down food
insecurity (Nelson et al ., 2010).

Climate variability is a manageable threat if trends in economic growth continue and invest-
ments in increased food production are made now, before increases in temperature and
changes in precipitation have significant impacts on yields. As time progresses, the cumulative
impact of a changing climate and increasing population reduces the likely ability of farmers to
adapt to changing conditions (Nelson et al ., 2010).

Trends in global agricultural production

Food security today is affected not only by how much food is available locally, but how much
food is grown in all agriculture regions and is available for sale on the international market. When
there is abundant food produced for the international markets, world prices for commodities
remain low. When demand is greater than supply because of factors such as reduced productivity
due to a drought or increased demand due to industrial expansion, then food prices will increase,
causing increased food insecurity in market-dependent populations (Nelson et al ., 2010).
What trends have been seen in agricultural production globally? During the past 50 years,
the world has seen an enormous increase in agricultural productivity, through both increasing
yields and increasing area under production. This increase more than outgrew the demand for
food from a growing population, stabilizing world food prices for nearly four decades. Pro-
ductivity has increased in the past through improvement of yields in many regions and expan-
sion of cropped area in lesser-developed areas. Figure 4.1 shows an index that describes how
the amount of food produced per capita has changed over the past 50 years. The difference in
the trend observed in all agriculture compared to cereals is one we'll explore further in this
chapter. Developing countries produce primarily cereals for local consumption and these
have seen declining yields in the past decade for many reasons (Pingali and Heisey, 1999).
Changes in local crop production due to climate variability will likely have a negative
effect on global food security, since in many less developed nations most food is grown and
consumed locally without ever reaching the international marketplace (Lamb, 2000; Schmid-
huber and Tubiello, 2007). Increasing disparity in purchasing power among nations will
heighten the importance of local production, making it increasingly critical that we under-
stand how changes in seasonality influence agricultural productivity (Brown et al ., 2009; Funk
and Brown, 2009).