By Marianne Stein
The U.S. is largely self-sufficient in agricultural food production, supported by a well-developed storage and interstate trade system. However, extreme weather events put increasing pressure on agriculture, potentially impacting the country's ability to provide food for its growing population and underscoring the importance of maintaining a resilient food supply chain.
A study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looks at U.S. interstate trade for agricultural products, analyzing how weather events in one area can have wide-ranging effects on food production.
"With climate change, we're going to experience more intense and more frequent extreme weather events such as drought and flooding, which impact agricultural output. It's important to prepare for ways to mitigate climate shocks to food manufacturing," said lead author Hyungsun Yim, a doctoral student in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics (ACE), part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at U. of I.
Sandy Dall'erba, professor in ACE and founding director of the Center for Climate, Regional, Environmental and Trade Economics (CREATE), is co-author on the paper.
How weather shocks affect food supply
"Our work is the first to map how extreme weather shocks in any given state affect the local yield, and in turn, propagate to any food manufacturing state in the country," Dall'erba stated. "For example, a severe drought in Midwestern grain-producing states will transmit along the supply chain and affect the largest food manufacturing states such as California, Texas, Illinois, and New York."
The U.S. produces 80% to 85% of domestic food for consumption, so adaptation strategies depend on domestic crops, national weather conditions, and a reliable transportation network. About 57% of grains and 77% of livestock in the U.S. are used as inputs for domestic food manufacturing, while a smaller share is sold directly to households, and the rest is exported to other countries.
Yim and Dall'erba obtained data from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics about state-to-state trade flows for crops, livestock, and fruits and vegetables over two decades. They combined this information with weather data on temperature, precipitation, and extremes (drought and wetness) to compute their results.
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