July has been the hottest month ever recorded in much of North America, causing crop yields to fall sharply and thousands of livestock lost. This has been the worst drought suffered by the Midwest in 56 years, cutting the U.S. maize harvest by 25 million tons. Many farmers' incomes have been destroyed by this year's drought, but they aren't the only ones. Very little rain has been seen in Ukraine, Pakistan, and Kazakhsan causing an increase in prices of corn, soybeans, wheat, and tea leading to an increase of 10% in the World's Bank's food price index. Water is the source of all agriculture and without it farmers throughout the world are losing money.
Despite the changes in weather patterns the past few years, global food production has consistently risen. This is due to the new crop hybrids, irrigation, and other technological advances. This is only really seen in more developed countries and unpredictable harvests can lead to devastating effects in poorer countries. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization states that the main focus should be energy efficiency in food production and getting more 'crop per drop', but this can be very costly and not all farmers around the world can afford this especially in some parts of Africa. With the changing weather patterns and the growing population, it is important to discover new ways of making water go much further in food production and at affordable costs.
Plants are important in absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere which offsets carbon emissions and this drought reduced the carbon uptake by half this year. Although this drought has impacted the world drastically this year, it has also reduced the runoff of nitrates into the Mississippi River and down into the Gulf of Mexico and as a result the algae bloom or "dead zone" has noticeably shrunk.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/07/world/drought-around-world/index.html?iref=allsearch
No comments:
Post a Comment