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UN food agency warns sub-Saharan Africa risks most from global warming
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  • ROME (AFP) May 26, 2005
    A UN food agency warned Thursday that people in sub-Saharan African countries are most in danger of starvation and food security difficulties in the light of the latest findings on global warming.

    "Climate change threatens to increase the number of the world's hungry by reducing the area of land available for farming in developing countries," the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in a report.

    Sub-Saharan African nations were the most at risk, being the least able to adapt to global warming or to compensate for it through increased food imports, according to a FAO Interdepartmental Working Group on Climate Change.

    The very existence of the global warming phenomenon, with multiple causes ranging from the world's mainly industrial production of gases that deplete the ozone layer to the destruction of forest reserves, was for decades challenged by government officials in countries such as the United States.

    In the past five years a worldwide scientific team known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has mapped out models of the intricacies and variables of the global warming process. These serve as a basis for reports such as the one presented to the FAO.

    The working group found that in Africa, 1.1 billion hectares (2.72 billion acres) of land have a viable crop growing period of under 120 days per year. By 2080, the team estimated, climate change could extend this area at risk by five to eight percent, or between 50 and 90 million hectares.

    "In some 40 poor, developing countries, with a combined population of two billion, including 450 million undernourished people, production losses due to climate change may drastically increase the number of undernourished people, severely hindering progress in combating poverty and food insecurity," said the document, presented to a Committee on World Food Security.

    Industrialised countries, by contrast, stand to reap benefits from ongoing slow changes in worldwide climate patterns since their own production potential could increase, according to the report.

    While impoverished sub-Saharan Africa is most at risk in the next 75 years, according to the report, the potential impact in Asia is varied. India may lose 125 million tonnes of current rainfed cereal production, an 18 percent cut, while China could benefit from a 15 percent increase in its current potential of 360 million tonnes through climate change alone.

    However, global warming and other features of change affect not only trends in production, but diseases affecting animal and plant life.

    "Climate change not only has an impact on food security, but is also likely to influence the development and intensification of animal diseases and plant pests," Wulf Killmann, the chairperson of the working group, said.

    The group observed that most pests and diseases act locally, but have global implications because of modern trade patterns and human mobility.

    It warned that "in a globalizing world", farmers, agricultural and health experts and governments will will have to adapt to an accelerating stream of new pests and diseases caused by changing ecological conditions.

    "Temperature changes, as well as increased air pollution, can enhance human disease patterns, as does the spread of trans-boundary animal diseases with their relationship to pathogens potentially dangerous to humans."

    "Avian flu is the most recent example," the report warned, referring to a recent bird flu strain of Asian origin that spreads to humans and this month led the UN health agency to urge countries around the world to press ahead with their preparations for a flu pandemic after a study in Vietnam showed signs of greater human to human transmission of the disease.




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