Food & Climate Connecting the Dots

Diana DonlonCool Foods Campaign Director,

Center for Food Safety

Tufts UniversityNovember 22, 2014

The Global Food System has been ignored as a source of GHGs. It has also been overlooked as a source of global solutions. Climate change is an immediate threat to food production. Agro-ecological practices, including organic, are the means by which we will be able to achieve food security in an era of climate disruption.

The Anthropocene

• Extreme Weather

• Deluge & Drought

• Shifting Weather Patterns

• Rising Temperatures

Climate Change Manifestations

Extreme Weather

Extreme Weather

Deluge & Drought

• IPCC: Rainfall patterns will shift

• More intense precipitation events by early 21st century

• Prolonged, acute drought by late 21st century

• Estimated annual water deficit is 160 billion tons• The water needed to

produce 160 million tons of grain.

• 533 million people are fed with grain produced with unsustainable water use.

Shifting Weather Patterns

• Earlier Springs, Warmer Winters

• Higher survival rates of pathogens

• Northern migration of invasive species

• Shifting spatial and temporal distributions of pathogens

Rising Temperatures

• IPCC: 1982-2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1,400 years.

• IPCC: Warming will continue through 2100.

• More frequent, warmer nights.

• Evaporation and Evapotranspiration

Carbon is constantly cycling through major pools.• Too much carbon in the

atmosphere is heating the planet.

• Too much carbon in the ocean is causing it to acidify.

• But, carbon in the soil not only has the capacity to absorb excess carbon, it is beneficial.

Where is carbon going?

Carbon is “plant food” and plants can rapidly transfer carbon from sky to soil.

Cool Foods sees soil health as the key to solving multiple food and climate problems.

we need to rebuild soil organic matter on a global scale.

is part of an emergingcommunity communicating

“soil solutions to climate problems.”

Thank you “Bio4Climate” for helping us disseminate this critical message!