Virtual Special Issue on food security - greater than anticipatedTI Virtual Special Issue on food security - greater than anticipated impacts of near-term global atmospheric change on rice and wheat

摘要

Working Group II (WGII) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), concluded in their fourth assessment report (AR4) that despite climate change and increasing world population, crop surpluses at the global level would continue, resulting in a ‘small decline in real world food (cereal) prices’ over this century (www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ publications_and_data_reports.shtml). In 2009, Assistant Director-General Hafez Ghanem of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) stated ‘FAO is cautiously optimistic about the world’s potential to feed itself by 2050’ (www.fao.orgews/story/en/item/ 35571/icode/). This is despite the fact that with increasing af?uence and a third more people it was estimated that 70% more food would be needed by 2009. Underpinning this optimism is the fact that yields have increased steadily at around 1.5–2% p.a. for almost 60 years, and that this might be expected to continue, or even accelerate in response to increased prices (IPCC AR4).