Food prices may rise 121% by 2050 due to climate change

Petang tadi baru argue dengan member tentang kepentingan berpuasa. Saya mengutarakan hujah untuk simpanan sumber makanan. Lepas tu terbaca pula artikel dibawah. Ini menguatkan lagi hujah saya tentang kepentingan PUASA.



The prices of food crops like wheat, rice and maize will rise between 121 per cent and 194 per cent by 2050 due to climate change, according to a study.

This, coupled with decreased yields of these crops, will threaten food security of some 1.6 billion people in South Asia and render 25 million more children malnourished by 2050.

This has been revealed by a comprehensive assessment of the impact of climate change on agriculture made by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). The report was released on Wednesday to coincide with an international meeting on climate change in Bangkok.

It has estimated that an additional annual investment of $1.5 billion in agriculture and rural development will be needed to counter the impact of climate change in South Asia while $7 billion will be needed to achieve this on a global scale. Almost half of this investment will have to go into development of irrigation facilities. More investment would be required in farm research and rural roads to provide market access for poor farmers.

The report has categorically stated that south Asian countries, especially India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Afghanistan, are particularly vulnerable to declining crop yields due to glacial melting, floods, droughts and erratic rainfall, among other climate change-related factors.

The yield of wheat may drop by as much as 50 per cent by 2050 from 2000 levels in South Asia. The productivity of rice is projected to dip by 17 per cent and that of maize by 6 per cent by that time.

On food prices, the IFPRI report has stated that these will rise even without climate change, but the global warming will make the problem worse. “Prices are useful single indicator of the effect of climate change on agriculture”, the report said.

Wheat prices are projected to swell by almost 40 per cent without climate change. But with climate change, the rise could be as steep as 194 per cent, it said.

Rice prices are projected to rise by 60 per cent without climate change and up to 121 per cent with climate change. Maize prices are forecast to surge 60 per cent without climate change but up to 153 per cent with climate change.

As a result of climate change and price rise, the cereal consumption is projected to decline in Asia by 24 per cent by 2050 compared to a no-climate-change scenario. Similarly, the average calorie (food energy) availability may plummet by about 15 per cent by then.

In the absence of climate change, the number of undernourished children would fall in South Asia from 76 million in 2000 to 52 million in 2050. But climate change would erase some of this progress, causing the number of malnourished children to rise to 59 million in this region, said the report.

This study, entitled ‘Climate change: Impact on agriculture and costs of adaptation’, has been described by IFPRI as the most comprehensive and the first of its kind in the world. It combines climate models that project changes in rainfall and temperature and a crop model to capture biophysical effects with IFPRI’s economic model of world agriculture. The latter projects changes in production, consumption and trade of major agricultural commodities.

The report recommends more open agricultural trade to ensure that food reaches the poorest in times of crisis. This is apart from additional funding for agricultural research, irrigation and rural development.

IFPRI is one of the 15 centres supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), an alliance of 64 countries, private foundations and other global and regional organisations.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed to have Jewish past

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's vitriolic attacks on the Jewish world hide an astonishing secret, evidence uncovered by The Daily Telegraph shows.

By Damien McElroy and Ahmad Vahdat
Published: 7:30AM BST 03 Oct 2009


A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots.

A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver.

The short note scrawled on the card suggests his family changed its name to Ahmadinejad when they converted to embrace Islam after his birth.

The Sabourjians traditionally hail from Aradan, Mr Ahmadinejad's birthplace, and the name derives from "weaver of the Sabour", the name for the Jewish Tallit shawl in Persia. The name is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran's Ministry of the Interior.

Experts last night suggested Mr Ahmadinejad's track record for hate-filled attacks on Jews could be an overcompensation to hide his past.

Ali Nourizadeh, of the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies, said: "This aspect of Mr Ahmadinejad's background explains a lot about him.

"Every family that converts into a different religion takes a new identity by condemning their old faith.

"By making anti-Israeli statements he is trying to shed any suspicions about his Jewish connections. He feels vulnerable in a radical Shia society."

A London-based expert on Iranian Jewry said that "jian" ending to the name specifically showed the family had been practising Jews.

"He has changed his name for religious reasons, or at least his parents had," said the Iranian-born Jew living in London. "Sabourjian is well known Jewish name in Iran."

A spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London said it would not be drawn on Mr Ahmadinejad's background. "It's not something we'd talk about," said Ron Gidor, a spokesman.

The Iranian leader has not denied his name was changed when his family moved to Tehran in the 1950s. But he has never revealed what it was change from or directly addressed the reason for the switch.

Relatives have previously said a mixture of religious reasons and economic pressures forced his blacksmith father Ahmad to change when Mr Ahmadinejad was aged four.

The Iranian president grew up to be a qualified engineer with a doctorate in traffic management. He served in the Revolutionary Guards militia before going on to make his name in hardline politics in the capital.

During this year's presidential debate on television he was goaded to admit that his name had changed but he ignored the jibe.

However Mehdi Khazali, an internet blogger, who called for an investigation of Mr Ahmadinejad's roots was arrested this summer.

Mr Ahmadinejad has regularly levelled bitter criticism at Israel, questioned its right to exist and denied the Holocaust. British diplomats walked out of a UN meeting last month after the Iranian president denounced Israel's 'genocide, barbarism and racism.'

Benjamin Netanyahu made an impassioned denunciation of the Iranian leader at the same UN summit. "Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium," he said. "A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies the murder of six million Jews while promising to wipe out the State of Israel, the State of the Jews. What a disgrace. What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations."

Mr Ahmadinejad has been consistently outspoken about the Nazi attempt to wipe out the Jewish race. "They have created a myth today that they call the massacre of Jews and they consider it a principle above God, religions and the prophets," he declared at a conference on the holocaust staged in Tehran in 2006.


Sources : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...ewish-past.html