Skip to main content

Home/ Climate Change Impacts Inventory/ Group items tagged farmers

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Hunter Cutting

Australia's peanut farmers relocating thousands of kilometers for water - 0 views

  • Australia's peanut farmers are on the move and some are relocating nearly 2,400 kilometres away for better access to water; last year 88 people in Victoria died on the way to hospital as a result of the heat wave that preceded the disastrous bushfires in early February; the average temperature across the Australian continent has risen by more than 0.8°C in the past 60 years; the Great Barrier Reef is degrading; and more than 40% of the nation's farmers are seriously worried about the viability of their businesses in the face of climate change.These are just some of the effects of climate change unveiled by academics, scientists, social scientists and public servants from universities, research institutes and government agencies at a Universities Australia National Policy Forum held at Parliament House in Canberra in March. The contributors provided unequivocal evidence that climate change was occurring across Australia, that it was accelerating and that its impact on society and the national economy was already apparent. Universities Australia is the peak industry body representing Australia's 39 universities in the public interest, nationally and internationally. The forum was held at Parliament House to attract the attention of the politicians who, for the most part, have paid little mind to tackling the problems caused by climate change. Speakers at the forum backed the detailed measurements of climate change presented in a report released just before the forum by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
  • Farmers are among the first to feel the impact of climate change. Already the peanut industry had assessed its future and a part had decided to move, said Professor Graham Baker and Dr Roger Stone from the University of Southern Queensland. They noted that the cotton industry was also undergoing a consultation process about where it was headed while the rice crop in the Riverina had dropped from a million tonnes a year to less than 50,000. The harvest date for wine growers has been moving a day earlier each year since 1980, according to data accumulated by Professor Snow Barlow of Melbourne University's school of land and environment. Snow is a professor of horticulture and viticulture and Convener of a primary industries adaptation research network. He said dry-land crops were being sown later and harvested earlier. This added to the evidence of changes in the timing of the life cycles of flowering plants and birds, according to his colleague, Dr Marie Keatley of the university's department of forest and ecosystems. "In many places in Australia, such as grain-cropping in the Mallee in northern Victoria, we are getting to the limits of adaptive management where farmers can change what they are doing within their existing system," Barlow said. "Given the climate data from the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, it won't be too long before we have to consider changing our agriculture systems entirely." But not all the news was bad, said Professor Amanda Lynch from the school of geography and environmental sciences at Monash University in Melbourne: "By an accident of our geography, Australia is a country that is subjected to very large changes over a decadal time scale because of the El Niño phenomenon. "So we already have an agricultural sector and a water management sector that is used to large swings over long time scales. We are used to pragmatic, messy, contingent approaches."
Hunter Cutting

Montana farmers witness extreme climate fluctuations - 0 views

  • Baker farmer Wade Sikorski said he and other independent farmers from around Montana have seen declining snowfall and extreme temperature fluctuations in their lifetimes that will damage farm production beyond the point of profitability if changes continue. “There’s definitely a difference between what I’ve seen as a child and what I’m seeing now,” said Sikorski, 54. “As a child, I remember incredible winters in the 1960s, snow in the fall that didn’t thaw until spring. The melt would come in a rush and fill the irrigation project. That’s not happening this year.”
  • This year’s snowmelt didn’t wash the gullies, Sikorski said. Instead, the Eastern Montanan’s farm ground, which never got cold enough to freeze deeply, soaked up the melting snow.
Hunter Cutting

Bumper crop trend continues for warm weather fruit in Kent, England - 0 views

  • KENT NEWS
  • While some producers are celebrating bumper crops courtesy of the early summer heatwave, others are advising producers look to embrace more exotic crops for long-term prosperity. Cherries are among this year’s big hits while wine producers are also raising a glass to the ideal conditions for their grapes. Although, ironically, it has proven too hot for some summer classics. Meanwhile, fruits traditionally associated with warmer parts of Europe – such as apricots, nectarines, and corn on the cob – are already being grown successfully here. There are even some variations on Kentish classics which are now blossoming. Apple varieties such as braeburn apples, which never used to survive in the UK, are already pushing out more traditional types. And scientists say it is all down to the effects of climate change.
  • Cheryl Martin, of Martin’s Organic Fruit Farm in Marden, said it had been a good year for cherries. “This year has been better than last year because we had all these long, hot days,” she said. She said the only problem to hit crops was the recent heavy downpours, which can cause ‘splitting’ on the cherries. Her farm sells produce wholesale to places including Choice Organic in London and Seasons in Forest Row. Biddenden Vineyards owner Julian Barnes said: “This year has been absolutely fantastic for us so far.” He said the warm, dry weather during flowering season meant that there were lots of grapes on the vines. The sun also creates more alcohol and of a better quality.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The vineyard also escaped the effects of the long, cold winter, he said: “We’ve been very lucky in this corner of the country. With the frosts in April and early May we got down to minus two very close to the buds being frosted off the vines. But not quite.” Now, Mr Barnes said he was hoping the weather stayed dry for the harvest at the end of September. Apples growers have also enjoyed the hot, sunny weather, but said the recent downpours were welcome. Sarah Calcutt, business development manager at Norman Collett, which markets English fruit from its base in Paddock Wood, said the extra light and warmth had been great for Rubens, a new variety of apples. “I’ve been out looking at orchards today with the National Fruit Show president and we’ve been particularly looking at Rubens. “We do not know if it will be a bumper crop yet because they won’t be picked until to September, but from an apple’s perspective the heat and sunshine in particular are great. “Photosynthesis is better with good light because it seeds the tree really well and gives it good energy for feeding themselves next year. A lot of day light hours are wonderful. “We’ve just had rain in time. One of the farmers who has no irrigation system said this bit we’ve just had came just in time for his young trees, which were starting to look a bit stressed. So the recent downpours have been fantastic.” However, organic fruit farmer Mrs Martin said that it had been a bad year for some fruits. “Raspberries are not looking very good this year. It was too hot for them and they were cooking on the plants,” she said. “But a little rain does everything good.” Dr Chris Atkinson, head of science at East Malling Research Centre, which has been collecting climate data since 1913, said the climate was a big determinate when growing fruit because temperature and rainfall had a big impact on crops. The climate data shows that the seasons have been getting longer and the winters are getting milder. “We can even answer sceptics about climate change – no one can argue that climatic data shows it is changing,” he said.
  • The centre has recorded increasingly milder winters and longer seasons. Dr Atkinson said the changing temperature should be used as an opportunity to explore new crops and spoke about someone who had successfully grown a banana outside in Cornwall.
  • “Apricots and nectarines on a commercial scale we believe will achieve economic gain in the UK rather than just surviving.” The centre is currently trialling hardy kiwis to see whether they can be grown as a crop.
  • Speaking about his own cherry trees in his garden, he said that this year they had produced more fruit than over the last 15.
Hunter Cutting

Mango production in Philippines hit by erratic weather attributed to climate change - 0 views

  • Aside from the possible sinking of many parts of Iloilo, Alvarez noted that climate change has started affecting the mango production on the island of Guimaras, resulting to losses among mango farmers. In 2009 the National Mango Research and Development Center (NMRDC) reported that erratic weather pattern, which has been attributed to climate change, has already taken its toll on the production of the “sweetest” mango in the world.
  • Rhod Orquia, junior researcher at the NMRDC, said mango production in Guimaras is being threatened by climate change, since the shifting trend in the onset of rains already affects the planting process and harvesting schedule of mangoes.
Hunter Cutting

Coffee crops affected by climate change: Reuters/International Coffee Organization - 0 views

  • Unpredictable rainfall patterns, excessive droughts, and hurricanes caused by climate change are already affecting coffee farmers from Kenya to Vietnam. Mexico and Guatemala are among the world's top ten coffee producers by volume, according to the International Coffee Organization
Hunter Cutting

Declining rainfall over 30 years helped fuel conflicts in sub-Sahara - 0 views

  • Some experts call the genocide in Darfur the world's first conflict caused by climate change. After all, the crisis was sparked, at least in part, by a decline in rainfall over the past 30 years just as the region's population doubled, pitting wandering pastoralists against settled farmers for newly scarce resources, such as arable land.
  • Agricultural economist Marshall Burke of the University of California, Berkeley and his colleagues have analyzed the history of conflict in sub-Saharan Africa between 1980 and 2002 in a new paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
  • "We find that civil wars were much more likely to happen in warmer-than-average years, with one degree Celsius warmer temperatures in a given year associated with a 50 percent higher likelihood of conflict in that year," Burke says. The implication: because average temperatures may warm by at least one degree C by 2030, "climate change could increase the incidences of African civil war by 55 percent by 2030, and this could result in about 390,000 additional battle deaths if future wars are as deadly as recent wars."
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • In fact, temperature change offered a better prediction of impending conflict in the 40 countries surveyed than even changes in rainfall, despite the fact that agriculture in this region is largely dependent on such precipitation. Burke and his fellow authors argue that this could be because many staple crops in the region are vulnerable to reduced yields with temperature changes—10 to 30 percent drops per degree C of warming.
  • "If temperature rises, crop yields decline and rural incomes fall, and the disadvantaged rural population becomes more likely to take up arms," Burke says. "Fighting for something to eat beats starving in their fields."
  • Whereas 23 years in 40 countries provides a relatively large data set, it does not exclude other possible explanations, such as violent crime increasing with temperature rise, a drop in farm labor productivity or population growth. "Fast population growth could create resource shortage problems, as well," notes geographer David Zhang of the University of Hong Kong, who previously analyzed world history back to A.D. 1400 to find linkages between war and temperature change. Those results were also published in 2007 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. But "the driver for this linkage," Zhang says," is resource shortage, mainly agricultural production, which is caused by climate change." Burke and his colleagues specifically excluded records from prior to 1980, because of the conflict rampant in the wake of Africa's emerging colonial independence after World War II. "A lag of a couple of decades would leave sufficient time for post-independence turmoil to wear out," Burke argues. "We took the approach that the best analogue to the next few decades were the last few decades."
  • Proving the link—and providing a specific mechanism for the increase in conflict, whether agricultural productivity or otherwise—remains the next challenge. "I believe that the historical experience of human society of climate change would provide us [with] the evidence of how climate cooling and warming during the last thousand years created human crisis, and also the lessons for human adaptive choices for climate change," Zhang notes. "We feel that we have very clearly shown the strong link between temperature increases and conflict risk," Burke adds. But "what interventions will make climate-induced conflict less likely?"
  •  
    Article in Scientific American, based on study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Study also addresses role of rising temperatures
Hunter Cutting

100,000 hectares of rice lost or crippled in Vietnam - 0 views

  • World’s largest rice exporter, Vietnam’s Mekong Delta which accounts for more than half of its output is hit by drastic climate changes, resulting huge losses of crops. Drought caused by a hot spell over the past month has hurt rice fields in the region with nearly 100,000 hectares destroyed or partly destroyed. A total of 25,000 hectares of rice was ruined and yields on another 70,000 hectares will drop sharply, the report said, giving no forecast for output losses.
  • The hot weather hit northern and central provinces from early June. On June 16 state forecasters said the temperature in Hanoi reached an average 34.6, the highest since 1961, leading to a surge in demand for electricity and widespread power cuts. While delta farmers cope with drought, they are also challenged by sea water intrusion, which experts also link to climate change. Over the past 50 years the sea level has already risen by 20 centimeters along Vietnam's coast
Hunter Cutting

Record Russian heat wave part of climate trend - 0 views

  • For the past four weeks temperatures across western Russia have topped 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit), killing scores of people and creating what is thought to be the worst drought since 1972.
  • Many farmers are on the brink of bankruptcy, while a state of emergency has been declared in 17 Russian regions. Nearly 10 million hectares of crops have been destroyed by drought.
  • "Such long periods of summer drought have been registered before, for instance, in 1936, but over the past few years they have become more frequent," Alexei Kokorin, the head of WWF Russia's climate program, told RIA Novosti. "This is a reaction of the climate system to man-made changes in atmospheric chemistry," he said.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • With a request of 40 billion rubles ($1.3 billion) in aid for stricken regions from the Russian Grain Union and an inevitable rise in food prices, the government has a tough job to do.
Hunter Cutting

Moscow Sets Heat Record as crops wither, drownings rise - 0 views

  • July 26 (Bloomberg) -- Muscovites sweltered as the temperature soared to a record 37.4 degrees Celsius (99.3 Fahrenheit), and the number of Russians who drowned trying to beat the heat reached about 2,000.
  • Today’s temperature in the capital was the hottest since records began 130 years ago, the Hydrometeorological Monitoring Service said on its website. It surpassed the previous high of 36.8 degrees set in July 1920 during the Civil War. The mercury may rise to 38 degrees on July 29, according to Gidromettsentr, the state weather service. Unusually high temperatures have contributed to record deaths by drowning across Russia, which increased by 688 in the past three weeks, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported on July 23, citing Emergency Situations Ministry data. Most of those who drowned were intoxicated, the government’s newspaper of record said. Another 39 people died yesterday, the ministry said on its website.
  • The heat wave has also hit Russia’s economy, with drought damage to 10.1 million hectares, or 32 percent of all land under cultivation, Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik said on July 23. The ministry has declared weather-related emergencies in 23 crop-producing regions. Russian food grain prices may double in 2010 from last year because of the drought, the Grain Producers’ Union said in an e- mailed statement today. OAO GAZ, the van and truck maker controlled by billionaire Oleg Deripaska, halted production for two weeks because of the heat. Workers were sent home today on a “corporate vacation” through Aug. 8, spokeswoman Natalya Anisimova said by telephone.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Peat-Bog Fires The country’s chief health official has urged companies to adopt a siesta regime of breaks for workers during the hottest part of the day to avoid injury and illness. Officials have also urged farmers to start harvesting at night to protect their combines from mechanical failure during the daytime heat.
  • Muscovites’ misery was compounded today by thick smoke from burning peat bogs east of the city. Twenty-one separate peat-bog fires were burning as of 10 a.m. today, according to the Emergency Situations Ministry. Two Il-76 transport planes, capable of carrying 42 metric tons of water, and a Be-200 amphibious plane are fighting the fires, the ministry said on its website.
Hunter Cutting

Heat wave damaged Russian Crop land - Satellite Illustration - 0 views

  • Severe and persistent drought held southern Russia in its grip in June and July 2010. Low rainfall and hot temperatures damaged 32 percent of the country’s grain crops, said Russian Agriculture Minister, Yelena Skrynnik on July 23. This satellite vegetation index image, made from data collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite, shows the damage done to plants throughout southern Russia. A previously published image of land surface temperatures shows extreme heat in the drought region at the same time. The vegetation index is a reflection of photosynthesis. The index is high in areas where plants are dense, with plenty of photosynthesizing leaves. The index is low when plants are thin or not present. This image is a vegetation index anomaly image that compares photosynthesis between June 26 and July 11, 2010, to average conditions observed in late June and early July between 2000 and 2009. Below-average plant growth is shown in brown, while average growth is cream-colored. If there had been above-average growth in the region, it would have been represented in green. The land around the Volga River is brown in this image. Plants throughout the region were stressed, producing fewer leaves and photosynthesizing less between June 26 and July 11, 2010. The image is speckled brown. In the large image, which covers a broader region in more detail than the web image, the dots are clearly fields of crops. Here, the dots blend together to reveal a broad region of drought-affected crops. The Volga region is one of Russia’s primary spring wheat-growing areas. The vegetation index values shown here were the lowest late-June values seen in Russia’s spring wheat zone since the MODIS sensor began taking measurements in 2000, said an analyst from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service. Largely as a result of the drought, the USDA expected Russia’s overall wheat crop to be 14 percent smaller than in 2009. The drought affects more than Russian farmers. Russia is the world’s fourth largest wheat exporter. If Russia isn’t able to supply as much wheat, the world’s overall wheat supply will drop. With less wheat on the market, wheat prices will go up. As of July 23, wheat futures (the current price for wheat that will be harvested and delivered in September) had risen for four consecutive weeks because of the expected drop in supply of Russian wheat, reported Bloomberg.
Hunter Cutting

Russia hit by worst drought in decades - 0 views

  • Russia is experiencing the worst drought in almost 40 years, the presidential advisor on climate said Monday, RIA Novosti reported."The country has not seen such an overwhelming drought since 1972," Alexander Bedritsky said.
  • Some 14 regions across the country have been hit by an extended heat wave and crops in nine million hectares of the 48 million hectares of sown land have been destroyed. Farmers fear they will be unable to pay off loans due to the losses. Meanwhile, the heat wave continues in Moscow where the country’s chief sanitary doctor Gennady Onishchenko suggests introducing a siesta period like they traditionally have in some Latin American countries.
1 - 11 of 11
Showing 20 items per page