Green | July 13, 2009 | 2 comments

Increased warming may cause Sahel nations to lose maize by 2050

source: http://www.scidev.net/en/news/sahel-nations-may-lose-maize-by-2050.html

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JanforGore
One reason why preserving biodiversity and not depending on monocrops is crucial to feeding the future world. Farmers in developing nations will now have to plan on diversifying crops and moving to crops that can be grown under these changing conditions.This is also another reason why bio-piracy of traits in crops that are drought resistant naturally which have been cultivated naturally by farmers for centuries must not be allowed to be patented by large agro-biotech companies for profit. They will doom farmers of developing nations to lives of servitude to their monoculture seeds which will only excaerbate this crisis.
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    Green,   Sustainable Agriculture,   Climate Change
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    Green,  Environment,  Climate Change,  Global Warming,  8 more
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2 comments // Increased warming may cause Sahel nations to lose maize by 2050

  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • Excerpt:

      Farmers in six African countries — Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Sierra Leone — may be unable to grow maize by 2050, researchers have predicted.

      Using historical climate data, maps of crop cultivation and climate models taken from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report, they found that by 2050 growing seasons in Africa will be hotter than almost all countries on the continent have ever experienced — even if carbon emissions are dramatically reduced.

      The research, published last month (4 June) in Global Environmental Change, compared the projected climates with present conditions and found that most countries will experience conditions similar to those existing now in other nations. For example, Lesotho — which has one of the continent's coolest climates — could turn to the maize varieties being cultivated in Mali, one of Africa's hottest countries.

      But six of Africa's hottest countries, most of which are in the Sahel region, may have nowhere to turn as few countries currently experience their extremely hot projected climates. The researchers warn that these countries may therefore need to switch to more heat- and drought-tolerant crops such as sorghum and millet.

      David Lobell, one of the authors and a senior researcher at the Program on Food Security and Environment of the US-based Stanford University, told SciDev.Net that these countries need to work together to grow seeds in a productive way.

    • 2 years ago
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