Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change
Press release: New Commission Confronts Threats to Food Security from Climate Change - 11 March 2011
Multimedia
Videos
Photos
Commssioners and Biographies
View the full Commissioner Profiles
- Professor Sir John Beddington CMG FRS, United Kingdom (Commission Chair)
- Dr Mohammed Asaduzzaman, Bangladesh (Deputy Chair)
- Dr Adrian Fernández Bremauntz, Mexico
- Dr Megan Clark FTSE, GAICD, Australia
- Dr Marion Guillou, France
- Professor Molly Jahn, USA
- Professor Lin Erda, China
- Professor Tekalign Mamo, Ethiopia
- Dr. Nguyen Van Bo, Vietnam
- Dr. Carlos A Nobre, Brazil
- Professor Bob Scholes, South Africa
- Dr Rita Sharma, India
- Professor Judi Wakhungu, Kenya
Supporting Research
- Agriculture and food systems in sub-Saharan Africa in a 4°C+ world
- Food security, farming, and climate change to 2050
Key Facts
- A 4-degree rise in temperatures will have profound effects on farming, cutting down both the range of potential adaptation options and the efficacy of those options. Different crop models give different estimates, but ensembles of models suggest average yield drops of 19% for maize and 47% for beans, and much more frequent crop failures. (Source: Thornton et. al. 2010)
- The first half of the 21st century is likely to see increases in food prices, and increasing demand driven by population and income growth. Even without climate change, prices could rise by 10% (for rice) to 54% (for maize) by 2050. With climate change, price increases more or less double, ranging from 31% for rice in the optimistic scenario to 100% for maize in the baseline scenario. (Source: Nelson et. al. 2010)
- Climate change provides a massive and urgent incentive to intensify efforts to disseminate the fruits of past research, to adapt it to farmer contexts in different developing countries, and to put in place the necessary policies and incentives. The benefits of adopting many of the existing technologies could be sufficient to override the immediate negative impacts of climate change. (Read more: Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change: Outlook for Knowledge, Tools and Action)