Food has fallen off the news since last year's global price spikes, but new reports say that feeding the world's burgeoning population is going to be one of the greatest challenges of coming decades.
By 2050, according to new modelling work by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), climate change could help push wheat prices up by 170-194 percent, rice prices up by 113-121 percent, and maize prices up by 148-153 percent.
That may appear to be good news for Australian farmers, but IFPRI's concern is the devastating effect on the world's poor.
The agency says that if the scenario is realised, an extra 25 million children may be malnourished in 2050 compared to a world with no climate change.
Such price rises, if they eventuate, will not be welcomed by Australian consumers, either.
IFPRI's conclusions, which like all such exercises don't take into account agricultural adaptation efforts in response to climate change, stem from modelling that predicts climate change will lead to yield losses in some regions.
The Washington-based agency took the unusual step of combining a global crop simulation model and an international food supply-and-demand model with two global climate models (GCMs).
Mark Rosegrant, director of IFPRI's Environment and Production Technology Division, told Rural Press that the study used two GCMs - one developed by CSIRO and the other by the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) - because of the inherent uncertainty in the models.
The CSIRO model predicts more modest temperature rises out to 2050 compared to the NCAR model - which forecast temperature increases of 3-4°C across most of the Northern Hemisphere - but the CSIRO model predicts steeper declines in rainfall across the Southern Hemisphere.
On average, the modelling forecasts that without new technology and adjustments by farmers, water deficits caused by climate change could by 2050 reduce irrigated wheat yields by around 30 percent in developing countries compared to a no-climate change scenario. Irrigated rice yields could fall by 15 percent.
Developed nations suffer considerably less under these scenarios, losing about five per cent yield in irrigated wheat and rice but, counter-intuitively, getting yield increases in dryland wheat and rice
Factor in carbon dioxide fertilisation - the extra growth expected with higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere - and the models forecast that across developed countries dryland wheat yields will increase about nine per cent.
Australia may be the exception. Here, climate change is expected to decrease rainfall. Across much of the wheat-growing regions of the Northern Hemisphere, the models point to both increased rainfall and warmer temperatures.
Dr Rosegrant's concern is for the developing world, and IFPRI is calling for US$7 billion to be invested in agricultural adapatation and technology to avert food shortages and prices rises in these countries.
Dr Rosegrant said there appears to be some willingness in the developed world to make a significant investment in this area.
"If we make the right investments on a long-term basis, there is less risk of needing emergency funding to avert famine or reduce civil unrest," he said.
"I'm less optimistic that there is going to be broad international agreement on reducing carbon emissions."
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