Climate change hits food supply through four connected pathways
White RR, Smith MR, Ziska L, Fiorella KJ, Raiten DJ
Climate Adaptation
The tomatoes struggling in your backyard during a heat wave or the aphid explosion on your roses this year are small local echoes of the same pest, water, and soil disruptions researchers say are reshaping food production worldwide.
A team of researchers reviewed how a changing climate messes with the whole system that gets food to our plates, not just crop yields but also water quality, pollinator populations, pest and weed pressure, and even the people who work the fields. They found that these changes can shrink harvests, alter the nutrients in our food, and make it less safe or harder to access. The takeaway is that fixing this needs better crop varieties, smarter farming practices, and stronger data to track it all.
Key Findings
Identified four main pathways linking climate and environmental change to food systems: shifting weather/extreme events, physical support systems (water, soil, ozone), biological systems (pests, pollinators, biodiversity), and agricultural production/supply chains
Climate change affects both crop productivity and nutrient composition, not just how much food is produced but its nutritional quality
Research gaps identified include the need to study simultaneous climate stressors, develop resilient cultivars and management practices, and improve modeling with better data
chevron_right Technical Summary
A group of scientists mapped out all the ways climate change is squeezing the global food supply, from shifting rainfall and pest outbreaks to labor shortages on farms, and outlined where research is still needed to keep food nutritious and available.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Interface of climate and environmental change on food systems-a report from the "Agriculture and Diet: Value Added for Nutrition, Translation, and Adaptation in a Global Ecology" (ADVANTAGE) Project Working Group 3.
As the climate changes, investigation at the intersection of climate and food systems is critical to understand broader impacts on human nutrition and health. This work seeks to (i) identify recipr...
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