A lot can be done to adapt farming to near-term climate change

The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, at which the un Framework Convention on Climate Change (unfccc) was signed, marks the point at which the world started to pay attention to climate change. One of the reasons it did so was fear about the future of agriculture. Farming and its products are crucial to all economies, and frequently big export earners; it is of particular importance to the livelihoods of large parts of the population of developing countries; and it is as exposed as any human activity can be to changes in the weather. The only industry the unfccc singled out as needing help in adaptation was agriculture.

That same year, according to the World Bank, the planet produced 1.95bn tonnes of wheat, rice, corn (maize) and other cereals. That harvest provided half of the world’s dietary calories.