The Global Food Security (GFS) Programme has published a new report, describing how the UK and China could work together to tackle the effects of extreme weather on the food system.
The report follows a UK-China workshop that was held in Beijing in January 2016. This aimed to build upon the work of the GFS expert taskforce on Extreme Weather and Resilience of the Global Food System, to establish a shared understanding of how extreme weather might impact food production in China, and the country’s food policy and trade might affect the global market.
The workshop also explored knowledge gaps and potential opportunities for UK-China research partnerships, developing a series of shared research priorities, including: improved classification and modelling of extreme weather; better understanding of wider market impacts resulting from food policy and trade responses; and new modelling techniques to link weather and food production predictions with their economic and social impacts.
These issues are of key importance to the resilience of the global food system due to China’s status as one of the world’s largest food producers and traders, having substantial influence over global food supplies and prices.
The GFS expert taskforce published a report last year (see below) that showed that the risk of extreme weather hitting several major food producing regions of the world at the same time will likely triple, going from a 1-in-a-100 year event to a 1-in-30 year event by 2040.
You can read the reports below:
Extreme weather and resilience of the global food system
This synthesis report presents evidence that the global food system is vulnerable to production shocks caused by extreme weather, and that this risk is growing. Preliminary analysis suggests that the risk of multi-breadbasket failure from extreme weather will triple, going from a 1-in-100 year event to a 1-in-30 year event by 2040. A number of recommendations are made to improve resilience of the food system.
(You can view PDF documents by downloading a PDF reader. We recommend using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox web browsers.)
UK-China Workshop: Extreme weather and global food system resilience
GFS collaborated with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to hold the UK-China Workshop on extreme weather and global food system resilience. This workshop report provides an overview of how extreme weather might impact food production in China, how Chinese food policy and trade might affect the global market, and a number of shared future research priorities.
(You can view PDF documents by downloading a PDF reader. We recommend using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox web browsers.)
ENDS