Despite important agricultural advancements to feed the world in the last 60 years, a new study shows that global farming productivity is 21% lower than it could have been without climate change. This is the equivalent of losing about seven years of farm productivity increases since the 1960s.

The future potential impacts of climate change on global crop production has been quantified in many scientific reports, but the historic influence of anthropogenic climate change on the agricultural sector had yet to be modeled. Now, a new study published April 1 in Nature Climate Change provides these insights. 

David Lobell, professor of earth system science at Stanford University and coauthor of the study, said that the results show clearly that adaption efforts must look at the whole supply chain, including labor and livestock. “They also show that even as agriculture becomes more mechanized and sophisticated, the sensitivity to weather does not go away,” he said. “This is counter-intuitive for most people, and we need a deeper understanding of why.”

“We find that climate change has basically wiped out about seven years of improvements in agricultural productivity over the past 60 years,” said Ariel Ortiz-Bobea, associate professor in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University and lead author of the study. “It is equivalent to pressing the pause button on productivity growth back in 2013 and experiencing no improvements since then. Anthropogenic climate change is already slowing us down.”

The scientists and economists developed an all-encompassing econometric model linking year-to-year changes in weather and productivity measures with output from the latest climate models over six decades to quantify the effect of recent human-caused climate change on what economists call “total factor productivity,” a measure capturing overall productivity of the agricultural sector.

Ortiz-Bobea said they considered more than 200 systematic variations of the econometric model, and the results remained largely consistent. “When we zoom into different parts of the world, we find that the historical impacts of climate change have been larger in areas already warmer, including parts of Africa, Latin America and Asia,” he said.

Humans have already altered the climate system, Ortiz-Bobea said, as climate science indicates the globe is about 1 degree Celsius warmer than without atmospheric greenhouse gases.

“Most people perceive climate change as a distant problem,” Ortiz-Bobea said. “But this is something that is already having an effect. We have to address climate change now so that we can avoid further damage for future generations.”

Ortiz-Bobea and Robert G. Chambers, professor of production economics at the University of Maryland, have been pioneering new productivity calculations in agriculture to include weather data that has not been addressed historically, aiming to bring new accuracy to climate models.

“Productivity is essentially a calculation of your inputs compared to your outputs, and in most industries, the only way to get growth is with new inputs,” Chambers said. “Agricultural productivity measurement hasn’t historically incorporated weather data, but we want to see the trends for these inputs that are out of the farmer’s control.” 

“My sense is that we are just getting better at eliminating all the non-weather constraints on production, but we need to scrutinize various possible explanations,” said Lobell, who examines the impact of climate change on crop production and food security. “This study is a big leap beyond the traditional focus on a few major grain crops,” he said. “By looking at the whole system – the animals, the workers, the specialty crops – we can see that the entire agricultural economy is quite sensitive to weather. It seems that in agriculture, practically everything gets harder when it’s hotter.”

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In addition to Ortiz-Bobea, Chambers and Lobell, the co-authors are Toby R. Ault, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; and Carlos M. Carrillo, research associate in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science. 

Funding was provided by USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the National Science Foundation.

 

Media Contacts: 

Blaine Friedlander, bpf2@cornell.edu, 607-254-8093

Devon Ryan, devonr@stanford.edu, 650-497-0444

Recent record-breaking heat waves followed by rolling blackouts in California have sparked renewed discussion about the state’s options to address future power outages. Program on Energy and Sustainable Development Director Frank Wolak spoke to Bloomberg about power market reforms as one option where California could open up its electricity to retail competition.  While pricing would better reflect grid supply and demand, it’s unlikely this option would have backing given today’s political climate.   Read more (may require subscription)

The Stanford Center at Peking University (SCPKU), the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and the APARC China Program jointly hosted a workshop on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in early March. The workshop, held on March 2 and 3, welcomed researchers from around the world with expertise in the Initiative. Unfortunately, because of the rapidly developing health emergency related to the coronavirus, participants from not only China, but also Japan, were prevented from attending. As described by Professor Jean Oi, founding director of SCPKU and the China Program, and Professor Francis Fukuyama, director of CDDRL and the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, who co-chaired the workshop, the meeting aimed to provide a global perspective on the BRI, consolidate knowledge on this opaque topic, and determine the best method and resources for future research.  

The workshop began with presentations from several of the invited guests. Dr. Atif Ansar from the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School kicked off the first day by describing not only the tremendous opportunity that the BRI presents to developing economies, but also the serious pitfalls that often accompany colossal infrastructure projects. Pointing out the poor returns on investment of mega infrastructure projects, Ansar examined the frequest cost and schedule overruns, random disasters, and environmental degradation that outweigh the minimal benefits that they generally yield. China’s own track record from domestic infrastructure projects does little to mitigate fear of these risks, Ansar claimed. In response, he urged professional management of BRI investments, institutional reforms, and intensified deployment of technology in BRI projects. Dr. Ansar was followed by Dr. Xue Gong of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Dr. Gong’s analysis centered on the extent to which China’s geopolitical motivations influenced its outward foreign direct investments (OFDI). Although her research was still in the early stages, her empirical analysis of China’s OFDI inflows into fifty BRI recipient countries from 2007-2018 nevertheless revealed that geopolitical factors often outweigh economic factors when it comes to China’s OFDI destinations.

Participants then heard presentations from Amit Bhandari of Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations and Professor Cheng-Chwee Kuik of the National University of Malaysia. Mr. Bhandari’s talk focused on Chinese investments in India’s six neighboring countries, which tend to center more on energy rather than connectivity projects. He first found that the investments are generally not economical for the host countries because they come with high costs and high interest rates. Secondly, he argued that these projects often lacked a clear economic rationale, appearing instead to embed a geopolitical logic not always friendly to India. Professor Kuik, by contrast, provided a counterexample in his analysis of BRI projects in Southeast Asia. He described how, in Southeast Asia, host countries’ reception of the BRI has varied substantially; and how various stakeholders, including states, sub-states and other entities, have used their leverage to shape outcomes more or less favorable to themselves. Kuik’s analysis injected complexity into the often black-and-white characterizations of the BRI. He highlighted the multidimensional dynamics that play out among local and state-level players in pursuit of their goals, and in the process of BRI implementation.

Professor Curtis J. Milhaupt and Scholar-in-Residence Jeffrey Ball, both at Stanford Law School, followed with individual presentations on the role of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in the BRI and the emissions impact of the BRI on climate change, respectively. Professor Milhaupt  characterized Chinese SOEs as both geopolitical and commercial actors, simultaneously charged with implementing Party policies and attaining corporate profits. Chinese SOEs are major undertakers of significant overseas BRI projects, acting not only as builders but also as investors, partners, and operators. This situation, Milhaupt asserted, carries significant risks for SOEs because these megaprojects often provide dismal returns, have high default rates, and can trigger political backlash in their localities. Milhaupt highlighted the importance of gathering firm-level data on businesses actually engaged in BRI projects to better infer geostrategic, financial, or other motivations. Jeffrey Ball turned the discussion to carbon emissions from BRI projects and presented preliminary findings from his four-country case studies. He concluded that, on aggregate, the emissions impact of the BRI is still “more brown than green.” Twenty-eight percent of global carbon emissions may be accounted for by BRI projects, Ball asserted, underscoring the importance of the BRI to the future of global climate change.

The day concluded with presentations by  Michael Bennon, Managing Director at the Stanford Global Projects Center, and Professor David M. Lampton, Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Bennon first presented findings from two empirical case studies of BRI projects and then went on to describe how the BRI is now practically the “only game in town” for infrastructure funding for developing countries. Lengthy environmental review processes at Western multilateral banks have turned the World Bank, for example, from a lending bank into a “knowledge bank,” he argued. He also highlighted that, in general, economic returns on BRI projects for China are very poor, even though recipient countries may accrue macroeconomic benefits from these projects. Finally, Professor Lampton turned the discussion back to Southeast Asia, where China is currently undertaking massive cross-border high-speed rail projects through eight ASEAN countries. He described how each host country had varying capacity to negotiate against its giant neighbor, and how the sequential implementation of these cross-border rail projects also had varying impacts on the negotiating positions of these host countries. BRI played out differently in each country, in other words, eliciting different reactions, push-backs and negotiated terms.

The second day of the workshop was dedicated to working toward a collaborative approach to future BRI research. The group discussed the key gaps in the existing research, including how to know what China’s true intentions are, how to measure those intentions, who the main players and their interests in both China and the host countries are, and even what the BRI is, exactly. Some cautioned that high-profile projects may not be representative of the whole. Participants brainstormed about existing and future sources of data, and stressed the importance of diversifying studies and seeking empirical evidence.

The rising level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means that crops are becoming less nutritious, and that change could lead to higher rates of malnutrition that predispose people to various diseases.

That conclusion comes from an analysis published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine, which also examined how the risk could be alleviated. In the end, cutting emissions, and not public health initiatives, may be the best response, according to the paper's authors.

Research has already shown that crops like wheat and rice produce lower levels of essential nutrients when exposed to higher levels of carbon dioxide, thanks to experiments that artificially increased CO2 concentrations in agricultural fields. While plants grew bigger, they also had lower concentrations of minerals like iron and zinc.

Read the entire story at NPR.