3. Change will be dirty at first but could get cleaner. Admittedly, some of the most powerful solutions to low yields are fossil fuel-intensive, particularly increasing the use of fertilizers and pesticides. Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa currently use 100 times less fertilizers than those in richer countries. There are plans afoot to develop lower-carbon fertilizers, but these will take time to scale up, as will other techniques like enhanced rock weathering. This system of applying alkaline rocks to farmland can boost yields even as it captures carbon.
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No, We’re Not Adapting Fast Enough
1. Prices are rising.
Econ 101 tells us that If there’s a shortage of something, prices pop. In a depressingly readable New York Times column from July, David Wallace-Wells notes that US wholesale food prices (adjusted for inflation) have shot up 50% since 1999, with products like olive oil and cocoa more than tripling in price in just the last few years. Cornell University economist Christopher Barrett writes that high prices are due to “the slowdown since 2000 in agrifood system productivity growth in the face of rising food, fuel, fiber, and feed demand.” He links high prices to poor diets, dietary imbalances, and societal conflict.
2. Our bad climate decisions are catching up with us. Crops need water. Not too much, not too little, and definitely not salty. Reckless exploitation of groundwater in the US has led to about 25,000 farmers fallowing their fields each year, and groundwater depletion is accelerating. Globally, much fertile agricultural land borders rivers and coasts. The UN estimates 10 to 20% of arable land in the Nile and Mekong deltas will be underwater by 2100, due to sea level rise.
3. The biggest problem isn’t climate change, it’s politics. The Global Network Against Food Crises says the primary driver for food insecurity in 2024 is conflict, particularly in Palestine/Gaza, the Sudan and Haiti, followed by economic shocks. Weather extremes come in third place. The Global Hunger Index goes a step further, noting that gender violence and inequality goes hand in hand with hunger from climate change in many countries. “Climate change has played a much smaller role in determining agricultural productivity than factors like technological adoption, social change, and economic growth,” writes Vijaya Ramachandran at the Breakthrough Institute.
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What To Keep An Eye On
1. New crops. Agricultural progress didn’t stop with the Green Revolution. A new generation of crops include low-carbon perennial versions of annual staple crops like wheat and rice, drought-tolerant species to cope with extreme weather, and even genes that could enable agriculture to thrive along salt-drenched coastlines.
2. Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with most of the world’s severe hunger. Its farmers have the lowest agricultural productivity and yet it is the only major world region facing significant population growth in the decades ahead. The UN sees a path forward with investment in energy infrastructure unlocking digital communications and data to transform agricultural production, management and governance. Cheaper, green power could also drastically reduce food waste with improved cold chains.
3. AI. The latest machine learning algorithms can accurately predict a crop’s future growth, health, and yields, based on a single snapshot of a young plant. That could put precision agriculture into the hands of any farmer with a smartphone, reducing pesticide use and wasted irrigation, and improving the timing of harvests.
