In Boli ia or weeks cattle and sheep die rom thirst

In Boli ia, or weeks, cattle and sheep die rom thirst. Drought hit Southeast o the country puts at risk o er 600,000 heads o cattle and almost 2 million sheep and llamas on the Andean Altiplano plain, threatening the ood security o this impo erished country o Latin America. The national weather relies on El Niño to explain this anomaly. In the North o the Kenya i e irregular rainy seasons led to a situation o se ere shortage. These episodes drama are the act o a classical climate ariability or should we see the irst e ects o climate change Di icult at this stage to say so scienti ically.

In Australia, howe er, doubt is allowed. The austral summer is not yet there, but Bush ires resumed, a ter the deadly ires that were more than 170 dead in ebruary. Since 2001, the Australia is acing a drought without precedent, The Big Dry, and temperatures ne er abuses in the country. The low o the Murray Ri er, which eeds the strategic agricultural basin o Murray-Darling (40 o production) and 72 o irrigated crops in the country has dropped rom 80 in eight years. The country-continent has understood that it is at the ore ront o climate change and that it will ha e to change urgently its agricultural model based on irrigation at - will. There is two years, the ederal Go ernment has then taken o er the management o the water o the basin, de eloped a right o access market in place and drastically reduced the distribution o allowances, including the price increased sharply. With spectacular results, as noted a study o the OECD: in 15 years, the a erage rate o irrigation per hectare decreased by more than 50, while global production was maintained, with a rapid di ersi ication, Canberra subsidizing the retraining o armers to water, such as the ines less intensi e cultures. Since 2001, EUR 2 billion was spent on the drought o arm assistance und. The Go ernment has e en created a cell o psychological support to armers, which some are dri en to suicide. I the drought persists, cotton, cereals or rice, whose olumes ha e already allen drastically in recent years, will soon appear displaced in this ast territory won by the desert. What changes in the economic model o Australia agriculture is certainly that 3 o GDP, but exported to date 70 o its production, part o irst global exporters o meat, wool, wheat and cotton.

The South still penalized

E en i it is not question o generalizing this disaster scenario, armers are now at the oot o the wall. In Europe also, the e ects o global warming are: progress o the maturity o the grapes, earliness in lowering, geographic extension o diseases and insects, etc. The scienti ic work analyzing the impact o climate change on agricultural systems and the necessary adaptation o the latter are now taken seriously. According to Bernard Seguin, head o the Inra mission on the topic and expert o the IPCC, climate change may accentuate the di ide between the North and the South. "In areas temperate, he explained, an increase in moderate temperature, 1-2 C, can induce an increase in the production o wheat or corn, pro ided they do not lack water, while in the countries o the South, the impact is negati e as early as the irst additional degree.".Rising CO2 content, which promotes the photosynthesis o plants and dope Prairie yields are likely to bene it armers in the North o the planet. The agriculture o the Kazakhstan, which addressed the Inra, should bene it signi icantly rom the trans ormation o the climate. or their part, some American States already examined cynically any bene it they may deri e rom an increase in temperatures o 2 C. To the South o the planet instead, whether the Mediterranean basin, the Australia o South America, in A rica, warming rhymes always with collapse o the rain all. rom 4 or 5 C or more on the other hand, the disaster would be general. But e en in below, the "opportunities" or armers in temperate zones are relati e, as the shows the recent report o the Onerc (national on the e ects o global warming Obser atory), which e okes the limiting actor or water, not yet integrated into simulation models. "In the e ent o an increase in requency o heat wa es, type 2003 cost, without adaptation, arable crops, could reach se eral hundreds o millions o euros per year," analysis report, also alerted to the threat to crops o the proli eration o "extreme e ents."

Great uncertainty

European armers ha e already responded to the new situation by ad ancing the dates o seedlings or playing on the choice o arieties. In theory, an increase o 1 C makes it possible to mo e a ariety grown 200 kilometres to the North. But what is true or the sun lower is not, or example, or the ine, linked to a local speci ic grape ia a complex system o AOC.

Existing projections, it is especially a great uncertainty, gi en the di ersity o ecosystems, on the extent and se erity o the agricultural impact o climate change. But the message seems now past: agriculture will ha e to not only adapt his techniques to sur i e, but also, in its own interest, reduce water use and limit its own gas emissions greenhouse, which are ar rom negligible.