Declining global per capita agricultural production and warming oceans threaten food security

Abstract

Despite accelerating globalization, most people still eat food that is grown locally.

The response of African land surface phenology to large scale climate oscillations

“…Given the agricultural nature of most economies on the African continent, agricultural production continues to be a critical determinant of both food security and economic growth (Funk & Brown, 2009). In this paper, we explore the relationship between large scale climate oscillations and land surface phenology metrics to determine how influential each climate oscillation is on the growing season as recorded by NDVI.…”

“…As population increases and food supplies become more constrained, the need to monitor agricultural production even in the least productive regions will grow (Funk & Brown, 2009;Funk & Budde, 2009). The amount of food produced locally often interacts with global commodity prices to determine the price of food on the market, affecting the ability of millions of poor urban and rural Africans to access food (Brown et al, 2006).…”

The globalisation of agriculture: introducing the Handbook

“…Globalisation can only transform this picture if it contributes to raising yields in those parts of the world most susceptible to further food shortages associated with climate change-induced yield reductions from staple crops. It is most likely to do this via contributing to improved distribution of seeds and fertilisers, which can then raise yields (Funk and Brown, 2009). However, the extent to which such programmes will be able to avoid repeating the mistakes made during previous rounds of the Green Revolution remains debatable.…”

A Holistic View of Global Croplands and Their Water Use for Ensuring Global Food Security in the 21st Century through Advanced Remote Sensing and Non-remote Sensing Approaches

“…Given the climate change scenarios that are expected to accelerate negative impact on cropland areas, food production, and water use in the future [16] and make agriculture less resilient to natural shocks [72] the global food security studies demand precise knowledge of global irrigated and rainfed croplands in readily usable digital formats covering the entire world at a finer resolution. Fifth, there are several studies in mapping croplands using improved resolutions of 500 m MODIS [16,63,73] , or conventional agricultural statistics [74] but none of these are at the global level. These products continue to propagate uncertainties in cropland areas.…”

“…There is a need to reduce the environmental footprint of food production. Declining per capita agricultural production and warming oceans are emerging threats to global and regional food security [16]. The drop in grain production in the Northern China Plain, which produces over half of China's wheat and a third of corn, from its peak of 392 million tons in 1998 to 338 million tons in 2003 (a drop equivalent to Canada's entire harvest) has been attributed to the declining watertables and resulting loss of irrigated areas [17].…”