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Heat Waves and Agricultural Production: In the Race to Mitigate Extreme Heat, We Must not Forget Strengthening Agriculture

Heat waves increase the risks of crop failures, threatening food security for billions of people. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

Heat waves increase the risks of crop failures, threatening food security for billions of people. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Esther Ngumbi
URBANA, Illinois, USA, Jul 29 2022 – Across the U.S., and around the world, particularly Europe, heat records are being shattered. Accompanying these extreme temperatures are fires caused by the heat that are burning both homes and forests. While extreme heat is impacting some areas of the world, flooding is impacting other areas including Colorado and Virginia in the U.S., and in other countries around the world including Brazil and Ecuador.

These climate-linked events that are occurring in regions and areas that have never been impacted before send the signal that no one is immune to climate change. All countries and citizens must act with urgency to mitigate this existential threat.

As countries consider climate mitigation initiatives, they need to be sure to strengthen agricultural crops’ resilience to extreme heat, drought, insect herbivory and flooding, that have become increasingly common

Indeed, these historical catastrophes create an important moment for all of us, including policy makers at both the state and federal level, to roll out bold reforms on many issues, including heat and agriculture.

As countries consider climate mitigation initiatives, they need to be sure to strengthen agricultural crops’ resilience to extreme heat, drought, insect herbivory and flooding, that have become increasingly common. These crops include maize, rice, soybeans, wheat and tomatoes.

Like humans, crops are sensitive to extreme heat. When temperatures increase, crops wither, their health deteriorates, and normal development is affected. Studies have shown that crops and crop varieties that are susceptible to heat stress are impacted the most.

Heat stress causes the deterioration of several important plant physiological processes including photosynthesis, respiration, and transpiration. Further, it causes the accumulation of toxic substances in plant cells including phenolic compounds and reactive oxygen species.

Plants’ ability to grow is affected and their life cycle is shortened. Ultimately, crop yields are reduced with consequences for food supply and agriculture, an important sector of the economies of many countries including the US, the UK, Spain, France and many African countries.

In the US, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, agriculture and related industries contributed $1.055 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020. In the UK, in 2021, agriculture contributed around 0.5% to the economy.

In China, the agricultural sector contributes 8.9% to China’s GDP.  In African countries and other emerging countries, agriculture can account for more than 25% of GDP according to the World Bank.

Heat waves increase the risks of crop failures, threatening food security for billions of people.

Indeed, scientists around the world have generated evidence of the crop and yield losses associated with heat waves and extreme temperatures. A 2017 study that examined extensive published results showed that temperature increase reduces global yields. Similarly, a 2018 study that examined more than 82,000 yield data from 17 European countries also found the same trend.

Crop failures and productivity losses due to excessive heat, drought and flooding are taking place in many countries.  The magnitude of these crop failures, however, varies enormously depending on the region and its wealth.

African countries, for example, suffer the most. A 2022 report prepared by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on climate change reported that intense heat waves, frequent droughts and floods have reduced agricultural productivity in African countries by 34 percent.

Worrying is the fact that crop devouring pests such as the fall armyworm and locusts, pests that have emerged to be serious pests also thrive when temperatures exceed the normal. Because insects are poikilothermic (meaning their temperature varies with the environment), elevated temperatures are associated with increased metabolic rate and an increased consumption of plants, leading to greater damage.

Additionally, insects like the fall armyworm can adjust their life-history strategies, further allowing them to thrive across a wide range of stressful temperatures. What’s more is that recent models suggest that each additional degree of warming will increase crop losses to insects by 10-25 percent.

It’s clear that as governments begin to strategize on how to mitigate heat waves, and other climate change brought about extremes, they must not forget agriculture.

Strengthening agricultural resilience can include developing disaster preparedness and response plans, continuing to fund agricultural research and other climate change research and accelerating outreach and education about climate-smart practices.

Climate-smart practices that can alleviate crop failures when extreme temperatures arise are diverse and include:

  1. Planting heat and drought tolerant crop varieties that have been bred to enhance their photosynthetic capacities and water use efficiencies when periods of stress occur
  2. Applying products such as silicon and silicone nanoparticles,  and
  3. Using inoculants made from naturally occurring beneficial soil microbes that can confer tolerance to heat and drought among other stressors.

 

Thankfully science researchers around the world continue to advance our understanding of crops response to climate-linked stresses. We can learn from them.

In the race to mitigate climate change brought about heat waves, we must not forget strengthening agriculture.

 

Dr. Esther Ngumbi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and a Senior Food Security Fellow with the Aspen Institute, New Voices.

Sidestepping Hunger & Boosting Food Security

Credit: EBRD

By Vanora Bennett
LONDON, Jul 29 2022 – Until Russia went to war on Ukraine in February, Ukraine was known as the “breadbasket of Europe”. One of the largest grain exporters in the world, it provided about 10 per cent of globally traded wheat and corn and 37 per cent of sunflower oil, United Nations figures show. The yellow and blue of its flag mimic its rolling golden fields under blue summer skies.

The war has darkened this picture beyond recognition.

Despite the conflict, Ukrainian farmers are still growing grain, at levels estimated to be around three-quarters of a normal year. But, with Russia blockading the Black Sea ports through which Ukraine would usually export about 5 million tonnes a month, the country is now struggling to get just 2 million tonnes a month out westward by choked road, rail and river routes.

This is not only an existential problem for Ukraine, whose grain exports are one of the biggest contributors to its economy, but also for the millions of people worldwide who would normally import and eat this grain. The World Food Programme (WFP) says that as many as 47 million people, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, are at risk of acute hunger.

Addressing this food security risk is a double challenge for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which works both in Ukraine and neighbouring countries affected by the war, and in southern and eastern Mediterranean countries which are struggling to import food.

Vanora Bennet. Credit: EBRD

Inside Ukraine, 18 million tonnes of grain from last year’s crop are waiting in siloes for export. Space is at a premium and the squeeze is getting worse. The figures become still more dizzying once you add in the winter wheat and barley crop now being harvested, and the spring crop including sunflower and corn that will also join the queue in a couple of months’ time.

“The biggest issue is storing the grain. There is some warehouse and silo capacity free, but not enough for the harvest taking place now. We’ve been told they are missing 15 million tonnes of capacity, even before the spring crop harvest that’s coming in in two months’ time,” says Jean-Marc Peterschmitt, EBRD Managing Director for Industry, Commerce and Agribusiness. “It is unclear how it will play out.”

“For now, the only solution is temporary storage – silo bags or floor storage or even storage in the field with some basic covers, which obviously will deteriorate the quality of grain,” says Natalia Zhukova, EBRD Director, Agribusiness. “Silo bags can pretty much preserve the quality for 12 months because they are hermetically sealed so infections or pests cannot develop inside. But simple silos without proper drying or ventilation will obviously have problems.”

“Getting grain out of the country and being able to store the harvest inside the country are the mirror image of each other, because whatever you get out is freeing up storage capacity for the next harvest,” adds Peterschmitt. “Getting it out so far has been not a great experience. But it’s vital to find more ways to do that.”

As the quantity of Ukrainian crops waiting for export and potentially rotting in siloes and fields increases, hopes that Ukraine could soon resume exports in something like their usual quantities rose briefly last week when a tenuous U.N.-brokered deal to lift the blockade on the key Ukrainian port of Odessa was agreed in Turkey on 22 July.

Less than 24 hours later, however, Russian cruise missiles hit Odesa. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, saying the attack cast serious doubt on the credibility of Russia’s commitment to the deal, accused Russia of “starving Ukraine of its economic vitality and the world of its food supply.”

Yet, by 25 July, Ukraine said it still hoped to start implementing the deal within as little as a week, and was making preparations including demining essential sea areas, and setting up naval corridors for the safe passage of merchant vessels and a coordination centre in Istanbul.

Still, for now, amidst the uncertainty, it’s back to working within the limits of wartime.

Within Ukraine, a significant part of the €1 billion of EBRD investment pledged for this year is earmarked to support domestic food security. As part of the EBRD’s Resilience and Livelihoods Framework (RLF), a €200 million multi-instrument Food Security Guarantee works across the food chain in Ukraine, both helping farmers buy fertiliser and retailers get food into the shops.

And there are other, smaller, freight transport options out of Ukraine for grain export if access to Black Sea ports continues to be blocked. The Danube River, whether in Ukraine or neighbouring Moldova or Romania, could be one option.

Throughput at Moldova’s Giurgiulesti Port on the Danube has already doubled in 2022. Another possibility might be supporting improvements to road and rail exports to help carry more freight overland.

In the southern and eastern Mediterranean (SEMED) region where the EBRD also works, meanwhile, all countries rely on imports to make enough dietary energy available domestically. The level of reliance on Russian and Ukrainian grain is unusually high.

Food prices are currently at an all-time high, making sourcing scarce imports from elsewhere ruinously expensive.

As the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s senior economist, Katya Krivonos, told a panel discussion at the EBRD Annual Meeting in May, Egypt, which has 5.4 million undernourished people, usually sources more than 40 per cent of its calorie imports from Russia and Ukraine.

“Climate conditions in SEMED don’t really allow them to grow grain. In arid countries, the question is how in the longer term to become more food secure, in a more sustainable way. We are looking at ways to help these countries find the commodities that they need,” says Iride Ceccacci, the EBRD’s head of Agribusiness Advisory.

In this region, the Bank is looking at expanding its work on agribusiness and food security beyond its current focus on the private sector to support SEMED countries to secure import of grains in this context of unprecedented high prices.

In Tunisia, 50 percent of all food calories are imported. Jordan imports approximately 90 percent of wheat and barley, which are essential staples and water intensive crops to produce. Morocco, which is generally less reliant on imports, is facing one of the worst droughts in decades.

In May, the EBRD joined forces with other international financial institutions – the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group – to formulate an IFI Action Plan to Address Food Insecurity.

“People in SEMED are very frustrated that they came out of the COVID-19 pandemic, having coped with it with a lot of resilience, and were looking forward to some positive growth.

But instead, they’re now getting this massive new hit, mainly through high food prices but also through high energy prices, which affect fertiliser prices so will also have an impact on domestic food production,” says Heike Harmgart, Managing Director, SEMED, at the EBRD.

She adds: “Now middle-class people in Egypt are buying less meat because food price inflation has been so high in the supermarket. And governments are worried because high food prices were one of the triggers of the Arab Spring in 2011, and there’s a very clear connection between political unrest and high bread prices”.

“What everyone wants to avoid is social unrest. The EBRD has been working on urgent food security response projects to support SEMED countries, with a first transaction now Board approved for Tunisia. These investments include technical assistance designed to promote sustainable solutions for grain supply chains in the region.”

Gérald Theis, Chairman of CereMed UK Ltd, a big grain trader, vividly describes working first with the supply problems of the Covid era, which raised prices and the threat of protectionism, and then the war on Ukraine, which began on 24 February.

“February 24 was like 9/11, or a tsunami,” he told the EBRD Annual Meeting’s food security panel. “We didn’t sleep much for a while. In eight days, we saw a move of nearly US$ 200 dollars per tonne – a percentage rise of 160 per cent.”

Asked what his sense was of where food security was heading next season, he replied: “I’m sorry to say I don’t know, if we speak about long-term. Today I would say a day is like a month used to be before. Nobody knows when this war will end or how it will end.”

“Even if it stopped tomorrow, we traders don’t think that things will go back to normal – there are too many issues with logistics, broken bridges and railways, silos and sanctions. In this environment, we believe prices will stay at a high level and it’s going to be extremely volatile.”

Source: EBRD

Vanora Bennett is EBRD Green spokeswoman / Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Georgia and Armenia

IPS UN Bureau

 


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