August 14, 2015

food shocks: expert task force reports on threats to food stocks from extreme weather

An independent expert taskforce from the UK and USA have outlined key recommendations to safeguard against threats to food supplies in a new report for the Global Food Security programme today. The report highlights an increasing risk of global food supply disruptions and price spikes that could result from extreme weather events – such as heatwaves, droughts and floods – and offers new recommendations for mitigation.

Although further work is needed to reduce uncertainty and better understand the way extreme weather may change, there is good evidence that extreme weather events, from intense storms to droughts and heatwaves, are increasing in frequency and severity.

The report shows that severe ‘production shocks’ caused by extreme weather– whereby global food production is seriously disrupted – of a scale likely to occur once in a century under past conditions, may occur as frequently as once every 30 years as the world’s climate and global food supply systems change in the coming decades.

Recommendations include; creating international contingency plans, developing better modelling methods to accurately predict the effects of production shocks, and identifying international trading ‘pinch points’ in order to minimise them.

Speakers:

Prof. Tim Benton, UK Champion for Global Food Security and Professor of Population Ecology, University of Leeds.

Ms Kirsty Lewis, Climate and Security Team Leader, The Met Office.

Mr Rob Bailey, Research Director for Energy, Environment and Resources, Chatham House.

Dr Aled Jones, Director of the Global Sustainability Institute, Anglia Ruskin University.