Climate Change spells doom for farms and food?
The new report of the International Panel on Climate Change sketches out the present and future of a changing globe. Among the most profound effect of global warming will be the impact on food production. According to IPCC, climate change has reduced agricultural productivity by 12.5% since 1961. North America, long one of the world's most productive agricultural regions, already feels the pain. Some of the battle/opportunity for minimizing climate change is playing out in the heart of Midwestern agricultural landscape. These lands that we are growing crops on, they can double as energy factories based on wind production or based on conversion to solar farms. Solar farms can be pollinator habitats, they can help neighboring farms grow pollinator dependent crops. There is a vision for a different, highly productive Midwestern agriculture that is providing agriculture that is providing energy not through ethanol, but rather through solar and wind. And simultaneously providing more food around the world than it does today. So, this is not a doom and gloom scenario. This could actually be more profitable and better for the planet.