Volatile weather around the world is taking farmers on a wild ride.
Too much rain in northern China damaged crops in May, three years after too little rain turned the world’s second-biggest corn producer into a net importer of the grain. Dry weather in the U.S. will cut beef output from the world’s biggest producer to the lowest level since 1994, following 2013’s bumper corn crop, which pushed America’s inventory up 30 percent. U.K. farmers couldn’t plant in muddy fields after the second-wettest year on record in 2012 dented the nation’s wheat production.
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“Extreme weather events are a massive risk to agriculture,” said Peter Kendall, president of the U.K. National Farmers Union, who raises 1,600 hectares (3,953 acres) of grain crops in Bedfordshire, England. “Farmers can adapt to gradual temperature increases, but extreme weather events have the potential to completely undermine production. It could be drought, it could be too much rain, it could be extreme heat at the wrong time. It’s the extreme that does the damage.”
Farm ministers from around the world are gathering in Berlin tomorrow to discuss climate change and food production at an annual agricultural forum, with a joint statement planned after the meeting.
Arctic Invasion
Fast-changing weather patterns, such as the invasion of Arctic air that pushed the mercury in New York from an unseasonably warm 55 degrees Fahrenheit (13 Celsius) on Jan. 6 to a record low of 4 (minus 16) the next day, will only become more commonplace, according to the New York-based Insurance Information Institute. While the world produces enough to provide its 7 billion people with roughly 2,700 calories daily, and hunger across the globe is declining, one in eight people still donât get enough to eat, some of which can be blamed on drought, the United Nations said.
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“There’s no question, while there’s variability and volatility from year to year, the number and the cost of catastrophic weather events is on the rise, not just in the U.S., but on a global scale,” said Robert Hartwig, an economist and president of the insurance institute. “It’s all but certain that the size and the magnitude and the frequency of disaster losses in the future is going to be larger than what we see today.”
The number of weather events and earthquakes resulting in insured losses climbed last year to 880, 40 percent higher than the average of the last 30 years, according to Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurer.
More Precipitation
Research points to a culprit: an increase in greenhouse gases, generated by human activity, that are forcing global temperatures upward, said Thomas Peterson, principal scientist at the U.S. National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina. The warmer the air the more water it can hold, he said.
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“What we’re finding worldwide is that heavy precipitation is increasing,” Peterson said.
Flood waters in Passau, Germany, in May and June reached the highest level since 1501, Munich Re said. That was the year Michelangelo first put a chisel to the block of marble that would become his sculpture of David. High water did $15.2 billion in damage in parts of Central and Eastern Europe, according to Munich Re.
A July hailstorm in Reutlingen, Germany, led to $3.7 billion in insured losses, according to Munich Re. Hailstones the size of babies’ fists cracked the windshield of Marco Kaschuba’s Peugeot.
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“Two minutes before the storm started you could already hear a very loud noise,” said Kaschuba, a 33-year-old photographer. “That was from hailstones hitting the ground in the distance and coming closer.”
In 2012, the U.K. had its second-highest rainfall going back to 1910, according to the U.K. Met Office. England and Wales had its third-wettest year since 1766.
Israeli Blizzard
December marked the worst blizzard since 1953 in Jerusalem, dumping 15 inches (38 centimeters) of snow on Israel’s capital, where more than 4,000 people were rescued from their vehicles, according to police.
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“It was like a neutron bomb hit,” said Eilon Schwartz, 56, an environmental activist living in Tel Aviv who had taken his 11-year-old daughter to play in the snow with friends. “All these cars marooned in the snow and no people.”
December was also Norway’s wettest month in history, according to weather service YR.
Rainfall last year in the contiguous U.S. was 7 percent higher than the 20th century average, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Yet it was difficult to draw broad conclusions because of regional variations. Michigan and North Dakota set records for wetness, while California set its own for lack of rain, NOAA said.
Source: Bloomberg