Changing risks of simultaneous global breadbasket failure

Abstract

The risk of extreme climatic conditions leading to unusually low global agricultural production is exacerbated if more than one global 'breadbasket' is subject to climatic extremes at the same time. Such shocks can pose a risk to the global food system amplifying threats to global food security 1,2 and have the potential to trigger other systemic risks 3,4. So far, while the possibility of climatic extremes hitting more than one breadbasket has been postulated 5,6 little is known about the actual risk. Here we present quantitative risk estimates of simultaneous breadbasket failures due to climatic extremes and show how risk has changed over time. We combine region-specific data on agricultural production with spatial statistics of climatic extremes to quantify the changing risk of low production for the major food producing regions ('breadbaskets') in the world. We find evidence that there is increasing risk of simultaneous failure of wheat, maize and soybean crops, across the breadbaskets analyzed. For rice, risks of simultaneous adverse climate conditions have decreased in the breadbaskets analyzed in this study in the recent past mostly owing to solar radiation changes favoring rice growth. Depending on the correlation structure between the breadbaskets, spatial dependence between climatic extremes globally can mitigate or aggravate the risks for the global food production. Our analysis can provide the basis for more efficient allocation of resources to contingency plans and/or strategic crop reserves that would enhance the resilience of the global food system. Climate variability explains at least 30% of year-to-year fluctuations in agricultural yield 7. Under 'normal' climatic circumstances the global food system can compensate local crop losses through grain storage and trade 8. However, it is doubtful whether the global food system is resilient to more extreme climatic conditions 9 , when export restrictions 10 and diminished grain stocks may undermine liquidity in agricultural commodity markets, resulting in higher price volatility. The food price crisis in 2007/08 has shown that climatic shocks to agricultural production contribute to food price spikes 1 and famine 2 , with the potential to trigger other systemic risks including political unrest 3 and migration 4. Climatic teleconnections between global phenomena such as El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and regional climate extremes such as Indian heatwaves 11 or flood risks around the globe 12 could lead to simultaneous crop failure in different regions, therefore posing a risk to the global food system 8,10 , and amplifying threats to global food security. While the possibility of a climatic extreme hitting more than one breadbasket has been a growing cause for concern 5,6 , only few studies have investigated the probability of simultaneous production shocks 13 or estimated the joint likelihoods of adverse climate conditions 14. Here we present, to our knowledge for the first time, quantitative risk estimates of simultaneous breadbasket failures due...

Global relationships between crop diversity and nutritional stability

“…Africa has the greatest inter-regional variability, demonstrating that in some cases neighboring countries have very different capacities and stabilities of crop nutrients in their food supply chain in any given year. This variability is likely driven by multiple factors including the capacity of a country to trade (28), and in country food availability as a result of war or political/social unrest (29)(30)(31), or climate induced disasters (32). Finally, the important role of imports in our findings for many regions highlights that nutritional stability is market exposed.…”

“…Furthermore, our novel network method could be advanced by exploring the importance of certain crops for a given country or region. Finally, with climate change expected to affect the yields of many globally important crops (37) and potentially cause multiple crop failures at once (32), this type of analysis could advance our understanding of food system vulnerability to specific crop failures, and provide guidance on climate adaptation efforts or crop diversification strategies to safeguard against climate change. Resilience is now a central paradigm in many sectors -humanitarian aid, disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation, social protection.…”

Conversion of agricultural soils in Austria—a case study for a community in Upper Austria

“…The potential future relevance of the agricultural soils is obviously not creating a credible stimulus for actors in agriculture. The focus on local demand for land in order to build infrastructure and residential areas is not accounting for concerns on possible future shortages of productive land for the provision of food, fodder, and fuel that is clearly expressed in a meta level (Foley et al, 2011, Gaupp et al, 2020. The societal demand for the production of biomass from regional land resources is not sufficiently reflected in land use regulations.…”

The risk and consequences of multiple breadbasket failures: an integrated copula and multilayer agent-based modeling approach

“…Climate-related shocks to food systems have recently emerged as a major cause for concern (Mehrabi 2020;Gaupp et al 2020). Such shocks affect not only agriculturedependent regions but non-agrarian regions as well through demand shocks caused by population displacement and supply shocks caused by value chain adjustments (UNDRR 2019).…”

“…In 2010, droughts in Russia and floods in Pakistan that were physically connected through atmospheric blocking (Lau and Kim 2012) directly impacted breadbasket regions in these two countries and affected global food prices (Katsafados et al 2014). This phenomenon, known as "Multiple Breadbasket Failures" or MBBF, has recently been highlighted as a global security concern by climate experts, agriculture economics and food security experts (Janetos et al 2017;Gaupp et al 2020), and with climate change, is expected to get worse in the coming decades (Gaupp et al 2019).…”