Climate To Strain Chinese Food Supply By 2030 - Reuters

[hatrack]

Unless, of course, things move "faster than expected".

BEIJING - Climate change and a growing population mean China, which is already losing farmland to deserts and urban sprawl, could face a food shortfall of 100 million metric tons by 2030, a top weather official said.

"Global warming may cause the grain harvest to fall by 5 to 10 percent ... by 2030," the official China Daily quoted Zheng Guoguang, head of the State Meteorological Administration as saying. Around the same time the country's population is expected to reach a peak of 1.5 billion, up from the current 1.3 billion.

To feed the extra mouths with lower yields of grain, Beijing would need an extra 10 million hectares of arable land, or around 8 percent of that currently under cultivation, Zheng told a conference in Inner Mongolia.

But China already struggles to provide food for one fifth of the world's population with just 7 percent -- and shrinking -- of global farmland. It became a net importer of food in 2004.

EDIT

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/22194

[aquart]

1. THEIR grain harvest? Have we checked ours?

I haven't felt particularly well since seeing a map that moved the Wheat Belt INTO CANADA. In 30 years? Fifty? Sooner than we are in any way ready for.

[tom_paine]

2. Maybe they can trade us their stack of worthless $$$$s