Climate change: staple food prices could double within twenty years
With climate change and the multiplication of extreme events that accompany it (droughts, floods and hurricanes), the prices of basic foods could double in the next twenty years (compared to 2010), warns the Oxfam organization in a report. published Wednesday September 5, 2012.
Oxfam says the effects of global warming are "underestimated" because "slowly changing average temperatures and rainfall patterns", generally unfavorable to agriculture, will be compounded by "crop losses caused by extreme weather events , more frequent and more intense ".
CORN PRICES COULD RISE BY 140%
In 2030, estimates the NGO, the increased risk of drought, similar to that which has raged since June especially in the United States - the most serious for half a century - could thus increase the price of corn by "140% compared to at the average price of food "on that date. "This increase will add to the already inevitable rise in food prices envisaged with climate change," insisted Clara Jamart, head of agriculture and food at Oxfam.
Read: Drought Drives Food Prices
In southern Africa, "droughts and floods could increase the consumer price of maize and other coarse grains by 120%," the study further shows. Compared to the current price, the 25 kilogram bag of corn flour (minimum ration of a family for two weeks) would go from 18 to 40 dollars.
The study - "Earth is heating up, prices are soaring" (original title: "Extreme Weather, Extreme Prices") - is based on the work of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex (Great Britain) carried out on behalf of Oxfam.
The researchers modeled scenarios of extreme events.
The researchers modeled the scenarios of extreme events on sub-Saharan Africa and each of the main exporting regions of the world for rice, corn and wheat, in order to estimate the possible impact in 2030 on prices export and domestic markets. Export prices for corn would increase by 177%, those for wheat by 120%, and prices for refined rice by 107%.
THE POOREST WILL PAY THE STRONG PRICE
In addition, "the modeling suggests that one or more extreme weather events occurring in a single year could give rise to price spikes of a magnitude comparable to twenty years of price increases over the long term", note the authors. It is "the poorest populations who will pay a high price for this outbreak: when a French household spends on average 15% of its budget on food, in the Sahel this share can go up to 50 or 75%", notes Clara Jamart .
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, mandated by the UN) predicts a rise in temperatures of 2,5 ° C to 5 ° C by the end of the century, accompanied by "events unprecedented extreme weather ". Despite its commitments, the international community is failing to curb CO2 emissions, responsible for global warming.
http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2 ... _3244.html
ps: but uh ... they have not already doubled in less than 10 years? And the warming is there for, almost, nothing ...