January 2012 the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported that global food price declined in December, but the overall annual average the highest ever record. It recorded highest average since FAO started measuring international food prices in 1990. Because drought drove up crop prices and hoard occurred by political instability the Middle East, the corps price recorded a threefold increase over 1990.
Now still crop prices continue to skyrocket. Recently, a new research, published on Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change, shows that climate change is likely to have far greater influence on the volatility of corn prices over the next three decades than factors that have affected on price swings -such as oil prices, trade policies and government biofuel mandates.
The study, based on economic, climatic and agricultural data and computational models, finds that even if climate change stays within the internationally recognized target limit of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels, the temperature changes could still make damaging heat waves much more common over the U.S. corn belt.
NCC author implied, especially corn price is likely to be more strongly influenced by climate change. Corns are not just corns. They have supplied great quantity of what Americans have consumed since the corn syrup was invented. They have greatly contributed to lowering and controlling the prices of soda, cookies, condiments, jam and bread by sweetening them instead of sugar. Also they have raised most food animals in the farming industry.
Thus, experts say that rising corn prices will make all these products more expensive. It will lead poor American to struggle to buy food and supply proper nutrition. According to the data from Feeding America, "In 2010, 48.8 million Americans lived in food insecure households, 32.6 million adults and 16.2 million children. Research indicates that hungry children do more poorly in school and have lower academic achievement because they are not well prepared for school and cannot concentrate."
The researchers also noted that biofuels mandate enhanced sensitivity to climate change by more than 50 percent, they wrote.
“Energy policy increasingly is important for agriculture. Ten or 20 years ago, what the E.P.A. and the U.S.D.A. influenced corn prices. Today, what the Energy Department does also is important,” said Thomas W. Hertel, coauthor of the study and a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue.
The increasing use of biofuels, which are derived from corn, has already affected agricultural markets by motivating farmers to plant corn instead of other crops. As a result, other crops have been produced less and the price of these crops has increased.
The reason why federal mandates for biofuel production accelerate the effect of climate change on corn price volatility is because reduced other crop production caused the market to be unable to adjust to changes in crop yields.
They suggested that, unless corn farmers increase their crops' heat tolerance by as much as 6 degrees Fahrenheit, the areas of high corn production would have to move northward from the current U.S. corn belt to near the Canadian border in order to avoid excessive heat extremes.
"Our goal was to explore the interacting influences of climate, energy markets and energy policy," said Diffenbaugh. "It is clear from our results that those policy decisions could strongly affect the impacts that climate change has on people. And, importantly, we also identify potential opportunities for reducing those impacts through adaptation."
