Climate Change and food security - what's the link?

"All aspects of food security are potentially affected by Climate Change including food access, utilisation and price stability" (IPCC, 2014:488)

Here's a list of what the FAO considered to be the impacts of Climate Change on agriculture. 

1. "The Carbon Dioxide fertilisation effect of increased greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.
2. Increasing mean, maximum and minimum temperatures.
3. Gradual changes in precipitation - increase in frequency, duration and intensity of dry spells and droughts. Also changes in the timing, duration, intensity and geographic location of rain and snowfall.
4. Increase in the frequency and intensity of storms and floods.
5. Greater seasonal weather variability and changes in start/end of growing seasons."(FAO, 2008:12).

Here's what the IPCC think.

1. Increased average temperatures
2. Changes to rainfall pattern
3. Climate extremes (heatwaves)
4. Changes in pests/diseases
5. Changes in atmospheric CO2
6. Changes in sea level.

Some reports have more positive attitudes than others. The FAO Climate Change and Food Security Framework Document notes that climate change could cause increased production in temperate climates which could potentially offset lower yields occurring in tropical climates.

Gregory et al. discuss why the impacts of Climate Change on food security will vary on a global scale. The diagram below best explains this, but it indicates that food systems are affected by "different socio-economic and bio-physical factors" (p2139). This means that factors such as economic status, level of dependence on a resource and how often a country is exposed to environmental changes will influence its ability to recover from more severe climate changes, and this will exacerbate or mitigate the impact of the event on food security.

Factors affecting food security - from Ingram et al., 2005 in Gregory et al., 2005

My main interest is fisheries resource management and it is interesting to consider what impact the changing climate is going to have on marine resources. Fish stocks are already heavily exploited as humans have decimated the stocks through over harvesting. Climate Change is another challenge that the already weakened ocean now has to face, on top of ocean acidification, plastic pollution,invasive species and destruction of habitats, to name just a few.  The population size and distribution of fish stocks is already changing, as well as their resilience to the other issues mentioned before. This will also further affect the livelihoods and wellbeing of those in areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa where people depend on fish as their primary source of income and/or protein, as it will become increasingly difficult to predict the temporal and spatial distribution of the fish stocks that they rely on. 

The population prediction table below, from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs indicates that world population growth shows no signs of slowing down. It is therefore crucial that we find a way to mitigate against the impacts of Climate Change on food security, so that we are able to provide for this vast global population in the future.