The world is racing to fight against climate change. Government, corporations and more are finally waking up to the real existential threat that even 1.5°C of temperature increase can cause in the world.
While global warming, climate change and their effects on weather patterns are often extensively discussed, one thing that is often left out of the picture is the effect that a rise in temperatures can have on food sources and crops.
Here are some food items that will bear the brunt of climate change in the coming decades:
Coffee
Your morning cup of joe may soon be going out of shelves permanently. Changing weather patterns and increasing temperatures are threatening coffee plantations with invasive species, outbreaks of the “coffee rust” fungus, droughts and a reduction in the suitable growing areas across continents.
Also Read: The Climate Clock: India aims to achieve net zero target by 2070; TERI's RR Rashmi weighs in
Wine
Rising sea levels, erratic rainfall patterns, floods, increased average temperatures, disruption in weather patterns, can all contribute to the severely sensitive production of grapes and the process of making wine. Winegrowers and producers are already shifting to newer cultivation areas to adapt to the changes in the environment.
Seafood
Climate change leads to the world’s oceans becoming warmer and more acidic. As a result, seafood is also expected to become scarce. Seafood already provides nutrition to a significant portion of the world’s population but collapsing ecosystems, species collapses and other issues threaten this already precarious balance.
Mangoes
The king of fruits is produced across large swathes of South Asia. But climate change is threatening entire production systems due to erratic rainfall, extreme temperature events, unseasonal rainfall, and other factors.
Wheat
It is not just speciality food that is expected to be affected due to climate change. Climate change can push millions into a state of perpetual hunger as the production of staples like wheat is going to be impacted. Global warming is expected to cut down the suitable area for growing wheat by a considerable amount across the world, with droughts being a major source of concern.
Rice
The biggest source of staple grains for people across the world, the production of rice is threatened through inclement weather patterns and rainfall. But as most of the production is located in deltas that are at risk of being submerged under seawater, the production of rice is also at risk.
Corn
Just like rice and wheat, corn is another staple food source mostly in South America, Central America and Africa. But the crop is especially sensitive to temperature changes and needs a significant amount of water. Droughts in major growing areas are already threatening production in some localised regions.
Avocado
The superstar food of Instagram, avocado production is spread over the globe in the Equatorial region. But climate change is expected to make the production of green fruit much harder as it already requires a significant amount of water to cultivate and droughts are expected to cut down on production numbers.
Also Read: Climate change turning Arctic into 'dramatically different state', tundra becoming green: Study
(Edited by : Jomy Jos Pullokaran)
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