By Stephen Leahy

Feb 1 (IPS) – Climate change will cause major disruptions in the global food system, and adaptation to those changes needs to begin immediately, experts say.

Otherwise one-fifth of the world’s population could starve and millions of others become climate refugees, forced by heat and drought to abandon their lands and hunt for food elsewhere in the coming decades.

To prevent this nightmarish future, researcher David Lobell says the world community should focus its efforts where climate threats are likely to make the greatest impacts.

“We used historical data to determine what food-producing regions of the world were most sensitive to changes in temperature and rainfall,” said Lobell, author of the study published in the journal Science today.

“Impoverished regions of Southern Africa and South Asia will be hit first and hardest by climate change,” Lobell told IPS from his office at Stanford University’s Programme on Food Security and the Environment. Continue reading →