Farms.com Home   News

Don’t Blame High Prices On Climate Change…At Least Not Yet

By Alan Tracy, USW President

One of the primary findings in a recently released summary report of the United Nations (U.N.) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is that there is a considerable risk to the world's food supply from continued global warming. That is no doubt a legitimate and serious concern. However, a number of news stories about the report have taken that concern a bit too far by blaming recent agricultural commodity price increases on climate change.

Perhaps the most egregious example was an April 11 story in London's Financial Times headlined "Climate extremes inflate food prices,” by Emiko Terazono. While headlines can often be misleading, the story is even more unjustified in this case. It blames increased volatility in agricultural markets on climatic change and claims that "The frequency of agricultural shocks caused by extreme weather events has risen sharply over the past decade, and [my emphasis] the resulting surge in food commodity prices has hit ... everybody..."

Let's wait just a minute. Yes, we have had relatively high and considerably more volatile grain prices, in particular for the last half dozen years, following decades of relative price stability. But, is it because of climate change or even because of weather?

The facts do not support the author's claims. Let's look at global production of major grains during the last six years. It turns out that the world corn crop has enjoyed record production five of the last six years. Wheat and soybean production have set new records four of the last six years. Rice set new records in every one of those years. Just where is the production shortfall caused by extreme weather ... caused by climate change?! It simply does not exist. The weather is less than ideal at least somewhere in the world every year, but we have managed to produce a string of record crops. The author backs up her price assertions by citing some recent year-on-year price increases, such as for coffee, apparently unaware that coffee is simply rebounding from several years of depressed prices caused by — wait for it — overproduction.

The other key factor affecting prices is, of course, demand. And, as you might surmise from the fact that food commodity prices have indeed been relatively high and considerably more volatile recently, demand has been at record levels. In fact, global consumption of each of those same top four grains has set a new record every one of the past six years. Now, that is newsworthy! Consumption growth for wheat and rice has roughly tracked with global population growth, while corn and soybean demand growth has been higher, reflecting the growing middle classes in developing countries and their propensity to spend more money on meat, the production of which consumes corn and soybean meal. That demand growth has boosted prices. And, from some perspectives, thankfully so, as the world's agricultural producers have responded to the price incentive by increasing production to meet global needs. The world will need to increase its investment in agricultural technology and infrastructure to keep up with that continued demand growth and to adapt to any further climate change.

The U.N. report documents the pronounced warming trend of the last three decades and evaluates risks to the planet if the trend continues as they project it will. The Financial Times author goes awry in confusing correlation (global warming and higher commodity prices occurring at about the same time) with causality. While she correctly points out that there remain serious future risks to our food production, her blaming high prices on climate change and her failure to recognize the remarkable success of agriculture in meeting the world's burgeoning needs thus far underestimates modern agriculture and is a disservice to this respected newspaper and to its readers.

Source : uswheat.org


Trending Video

This Is The Way We Pick Our Corn

Video: This Is The Way We Pick Our Corn

Chris and I went out to the Bryan & Janet Hull Dairy, to shoot some drone pictures of them picking this years crop of corn. I did about an hour of video with both the Mavic and the Avata.