The risk of multiple breadbasket failure is rising

There is limited time for the world to address, stop, and solve ongoing climate disruption.

We are living through the hottest days in the history of our species. Many of the systems we depend on for life as we know it to function safely show signs of breaking down. Ocean currents are slowing. Jet streams are fragmenting. It is increasingly likely multiple breadbasket regions will see catastrophic harvest collapse simultaneously at some point in the next 10 to 20 years. Impacts are arriving and compounding so quickly that we now have less reason to believe such multiple breadbasket failure will be entirely recoverable.

Recently published research finds that otherwise effective climate models have underestimated the ground-level effects of dislocated and fragmented jet streams, and the resulting risk of simultaneous major harvest collapse. That same report found evidence of compounding impacts:

Extremes occurring in close temporal vicinity11,12,13 can lead to outsized societal impacts, often beyond the sum of each extreme occurring in isolation.14 In particular, synchronized crop failures due to simultaneous weather extremes across multiple breadbasket regions pose a risk to global food security and food system supply chains15,16, with potential disproportional impacts for import-dependent regions.2,3

It is becoming necessary to think of a multiple breadbasket failure as an event that might have even more grave global disruptive effects than the COVID-19 pandemic emergency and the Russian invasion and blockade of Ukraine. Global grain supplies are traded on future contracts. If two or more major food-exporting regions fail to produce half the usual amount of grain, markets will start to price in scarcity quickly, projecting higher costs well in advance. This may allow some financial interests to adjust, but prices will rise suddenly, destabilizing local economies around the world.

It is in this context that we must consider upcoming opportunities to decide for better or worse the future of international financial arrangements, food and water policy, conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems, and coordinated climate action, including through multilateral cooperative efforts and new mechanisms like the Co-Investment Platform for Food Systems Transformation.