In the next 10 years, there will be a marked rise in severity of drought in large parts of Asia, impacting global food security, says a new research by the UK-based Centre for Low Carbon Futures.
While Pakistan, China and Turkey, key producers of wheat and maize, may be the worst affected, India too stands to be impacted, as it has infrastructure challenges that makes it less adaptable, says the report.
On an average, across Asia, droughts lasting longer than three months will be more than twice as severe in terms of their soil moisture deficit compared with the 1990-2005 period.
“This is cause for concern as China and India have the world’s largest populations and are Asia’s largest food producers,’ says the study ‘Food Security: Near future projections of the impact of drought in Asia’, done by Piers Forster from the School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, who is also a lead author on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The study was based on climate change projections from 12 leading climate modelling centres around the world.
Jon Price, Director of the Centre for Low Carbon Futures, said in a release,“Until now, most projections on food security and drought have been to the 2050s - far out of range for most policy makers to contemplate. Our report projects impacts for the 2020s.”
The study calls for policymakers to focus on climate change adaptation as well as mitigation to safeguard food production.
The ability of the Asian region to adapt to climate change and the associated threat to agricultural production which will help reduce future crop losses in the drought years holds the key, says the study.
While the study found China to be relatively well placed to adapt to climate change and manage the threat to food security, it said the adaptive capacities of other major producers including India, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, were found to be insufficient.