{"id":290399,"date":"2023-12-07T20:12:28","date_gmt":"2023-12-07T19:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=290399"},"modified":"2023-12-07T20:12:31","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T19:12:31","slug":"wrong-washington-post-warming-hasnt-harmed-african-crop-production","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=290399","title":{"rendered":"Wrong, Washington Post, Warming Hasn\u2019t Harmed African Crop Production"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Linnea Lueken<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Telephoto lens<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A recent The Washington Post<\/em> (The Post) article claims that African farmers, particularly those in Ethiopia, are struggling with crop failures caused by climate change. This is false. While crop failures do occur and have harder impacts on communities that are already poor, there is no data showing that drought or tropical cyclones are happening more frequently or becoming more severe, or that crops production is declining as a result. Worse, the evidence suggests that international organizations climate change efforts undermine the use of technologies proven to increase food production, harming African agricultural progress as a result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The article, \u201cFarmers race to innovate as climate change threatens African food supply<\/a>,\u201d begins with a focus on Ethiopia and claims that the Earth\u2019s rising average temperature means \u201clarge chunks of Africa are whipsawing between increasingly severe droughts and more frequent and intense cyclones, threatening staple foods for hundreds of millions of people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Post cites claims by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that \u201ceach increase of 1 degree Celsius correlates to a three-percentage-point reduction in agricultural output in developing countries,\u201d and predicts that \u201ccrop yields in sub-Saharan Africa will decline by 5 to 17 percent by 2050, despite a rapidly growing population.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of the article focuses on organizations that are promoting chicken raising in Ethiopia as a low-emissions, low water-use livestock option, and claims that cereal crops like wheat, rice, and corn (maize) are particularly susceptible to extreme weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of the above claims are false.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Climate Realism<\/em> has pointed out in many articles, including here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>, African drought and flooding cycles are natural, and no signal from climate change can be detected in regional or continent-wide staple crop production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data clearly show that the IMF\u2019s claims about warming causing a decline in African crop production is patently and obviously false. Crop production in Africa in general, and Ethiopia in particular increased dramatically over recent decades, even as the planet has experienced a warming of more than 1\u2103. To reiterate the point, as warming has occurred, crop production and yields have increased, not decreased. Also, real world data<\/a> and peer reviewed agronomy research<\/a> provides no reason for believing these trends will change in the future, absent political interference in to use of fossil fuels to plant<\/a>, fertilize, harvest, and deliver crops. Those are the facts, IMF and Washington Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at crop production data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization<\/a>, it is clear that the cereal crops (including rice, wheat, maize, and others) that are claimed to be particularly susceptible to the impacts of climate change have seen improvements. (See figure below)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the past three decades of warming:<\/p>\n\n\n\n