This Climate Business podcast: Future of Food, the threats and opportunity in climate change (edited excerpts)
Listen to the full episode here.
Vincent
“When the heavy rains deluged the North Island on Auckland anniversary weekend in 2023, some of the most high-profile victims were vegetables. Growers looked on with dismay, but it was not a surprise to weather watchers like Dr Brent Clothier, the principal scientist at Plant and Food Research and an advisor to growers about climate.”
Brent
“There's nothing unusual about how it happened. What was unusual is how big it was. The event was caused by an atmospheric river out of the tropics squeezed between two anti-cyclones. They've happened throughout the ages. What is unusual is that the intensity of these atmospheric rivers has increased. The atmosphere is warmer. It holds more water, and the wind speeds are stronger and they come down and they create damage.”
Vincent
“Despite all that rain that we've experienced this year, the science is suggesting that New Zealand is getting drier, right?”
Brent
"It might not seem it just now. Since 1996, there's actually been nearly 11% decline in annual rainfall across New Zealand as a result of climate change. So we are getting less rainfall. In certain areas, like Northland, that has even been more dramatic. In Northland, it's something like 18% lower than it was in 1996 to 2000.
"The total rain we are receiving, the supply of water is becoming less. It’s a double whammy in the sense that we have less water that is supplying our reservoirs, our rivers, our lakes, our groundwaters, of the order of 10%. Meanwhile, we're having greater demand during summer on average because of our warmer conditions. The intensity of our events is increasing. Our winds also.”
Vincent
“Then there's the destruction when a storm comes through. Massey University food technologist Professor Matt Holden says that climate change is hands down the biggest disruption facing the food industry."
Matt
“When we talk about climate change, it can manifest itself in a couple of different ways. You've got the long-term element of projected increases in temperature over the next decades through to hundreds of years. But equally, what is becoming more apparent now is that we are seeing greater incidence of singular weather events related that have the potential to be incredibly disruptive for food production. We're talking about things like heat waves, floods, storms which, in isolated situations, have the potential to wipe out an entire crop.
“The logistics side really highlights the interconnectivity of food production, that it's easy to just consider food production in the context of the materials itself, that we're looking at the availability of, whether it's eggs, wheat, sprouts, or whatever. But obviously, there's a lot that goes into being able to grow those to the levels that we need to produce them. And it only takes one string to be broken, in some respects, for everything else to be impacted.”
Vincent
“Dr. Victoria Hatton, CEO of Food HQ, says it's tough on ordinary growers and farmers, many of whom struggle with conditions as they already are. She was a lead author of the Agricultural Sector Climate Change Scenario Report commissioned by the Aotearoa Circle. It posits three scenarios at 1.5, 2, and 3 degrees Celsius of global heating.”
Victoria
“Scenario planning is all about building resilience into a system when it comes to climate change. We need to be thinking about the technologies we need to adopt and implement now that will enable us to grow food in a 3 degree world.
"That's dry, windy, has intense rainfall, more often than we're seeing at the moment. Some areas will be permanently underwater, so therefore, the land will be salinated. We won't be able to grow around the margins that we're growing now.”
Vincent
“So what should farmers and growers do?
Victoria
I'd certainly be interested in the scenarios that we've created and looking at them Reading as much information around the science coming out of our national science challenges in terms of the predictions for climate change and land use change and what that might mean for your farm, or orchard, in the next 10 or 20 years. Then I would be thinking about how to improve the soil. How to make it more resilient to adverse weather conditions, whether it's rainfall or drought. Looking at what you're growing. Could you become a more diverse system?
"There's a lot of knowledge and information around there.”
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