Climate Change and Food Security: Implications for US Production and Trade.

Climate is a major factor affecting food production throughout the world. Year to year variation in weather is one of the largest factors affecting variation in production levels for all crops grown around the world. Scenarios of climate change suggest that variations in weather within a growing season will increase and this will manifest itself in increased variation in crop production. These patterns will not be consistent across the United States and with the current distribution of crop commodities there will likely continue to be production above levels of consumption leading to maintenance of the current positive balance of trade for the agricultural sector. Food security for the US may not be as large of issue as worldwide food security, where climate change resulting in temperature and precipitation effects on plant production will be much larger than in the US. The increased spatial and temporal variations in temperature extremes and precipitation amounts will affect crops differently with a projection of increased variation in regional production amounts. Adaptation strategies will help alleviate some of the plant responses to climate; however, these may not be sufficient to eliminate the negative impacts of climate change on production.