Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumCrop breeding is not keeping pace with climate change
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/3877/crop_breeding_is_not_keeping_pace_with_climate_change[font size=5]Crop breeding is not keeping pace with climate change[/font]
[font size=4]Crop yields will fall within the next decade due to climate change unless immediate action is taken to speed up the introduction of new and improved varieties, experts have warned.[/font]
[font size=3]The research, led by the University of Leeds and published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, focusses on maize in Africa but the underlying processes affect crops across the tropics.
Study lead author Professor Andy Challinor, from the Priestley International Centre for Climate at the University of Leeds, said: In Africa, gradually rising temperatures and more droughts and heatwaves caused by climate change will have an impact on maize.
We looked in particular at the effect of temperature on crop durations, which is the length of time between planting and harvesting.
"Higher temperatures mean shorter durations and hence less time to accumulate biomass and yield.
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Warpy
(110,913 posts)and as the groundwater is depleted, some farmers are going to have to give up on parts of the country. If we're very, very lucky, grassland will be reestablished. If we're unlucky, it will turn to desert.
I can't see how we're going to go on growing corn and soybeans and feed it all to livestock for much longer.
NNadir
(33,368 posts)...except that the vast majority of soy grown in the United States is (Oh! My! God!) genetically engineered.
Breeding is genetic engineering, albeit without the use of biomolecular methods. In case you missed it, we have lots of people screaming about GMO and how it's the end of the world.
It matters not that these people are fools, toying out of ignorance with the future food supply of humanity, they seem to have a lot of power.
The anti-GMO movement is our creationism, by "our" I mean those of us on the left.
Climate change is not something that is going to take place in 50-100 years, in the age when the anti-GMO, anti-nuke luddites at Greenpeace believe the world will be solar and wind powered. It is happening now..
Unfortunately, these are great days for ignorance; and we are unprepared intellectually and morally to deal with what we have done.
Have a nice day tomorrow.
mopinko
(69,807 posts)resistance to gmo crops. hell, we havent even gotten golden rice to where it is needed.
people gonna need to decide.