Tea | Wine | Beef -Would you miss it?
Climate change is upon us and it will make an impact on the food and drink that we have available. This web site examines the threats that could wipe some of your favourites from the menu if we stick with business as usual. The commodities explored here are tea, wine and beef. My earlier site tackles chocolate, coffee and beer.
According to research published in Nature Climate Change (2021),
... anthropogenic climate change has reduced global agricultural TFP (total factor productivity) by about 21% since 1961, a slowdown that is equivalent to losing the last 9 years of productivity growth. The effect is substantially more severe (a reduction of ~30-33%) in warmer regions such as Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean. We also find that global agriculture has grown more vulnerable to ongoing climate change.1
The global food system
Utilisation of the planet's resources to provide ourselves with food and beverages has evolved into a complex set of interactions involving the environment, primary producers/agriculturalists, consumers, the transport industry, economics at every level and of course, politics both locally and internationally. Click on the image to see a larger version outlining the factors involved and their interplay.
This website has a much more modest aims -
- to explore the way in which we take for granted that certain food stuffs will always be available
- to examine the effects of anthropogenic climate change and what steps we can take to ensure that supply and quality disruptions are minimised.