Global warming threatens China’s food security and could result in crop pests and diseases doubling, study warns
- International researchers say a 4C rise in global temperatures could have a severe impact on agriculture in the world’s biggest cereal crop producer
- Climate change has already been responsible for a fourfold increase in the problem between 1970 and 2016, scientists say
An international team of researchers said that if the world failed to limit greenhouse gas emissions, causing global temperatures to rise by more than 4 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels by 2100, there would be a twofold increase in crop pests and diseases (CPDs).
But if the temperature rise could be kept to under 2 degrees Celsius, there would be only a slight increase on 2020 levels, in which case agricultural technology would be key to managing pests.
“With the projected increasing risk of CPD occurrence, the next priority would be to develop adaptive CPD management … to close the yield gap and feed the ever-rising population without damaging the environment and human health,” the researchers wrote in a paper published in journal Nature Food this month.
China, which has a population of 1.4 billion people, is the world’s largest producer of the main cereal crops (rice, wheat and maize), all of which are the main hosts of pests and diseases such as fungus, according to the researchers.
An analysis by the team of scientists from Britain, China, France, Germany, Sweden and the United States showed that CPD occurrence nationwide has increased fourfold on average between 1970 and 2016, affecting every province in China.
The researchers said the problem is especially severe in two of the main crop-producing areas, the North China Plains and the middle-lower Yangtze Plains in the east.