I’ve seen a few stories recently about impacts of adverse climate on crops in other countries. AgWeb reported that France’s wheat harvest will be the worst in 28 years after rain and an overcast spring dropped yields precipitously. Excess water drowned the roots of the plants and fungal diseases were rampant, which the lack of sunshine reduced the number and size of the kernels. Their yield is down over 30 percent from last year, according to the report.
Severe flooding in China killed almost 130 people and damaged 4.7 million acres of cropland, leading to direct economic costs of $5.7 billion. Livestock were also affected by the flooding, which killed thousands of swine, hundreds of bulls, and over 5 million fowl. You can read the story at Reuters.com here.
I also ran across an interesting interactive graphic on the origin of crops across the world. You can view it at https://blog.ciat.cgiar.org/origin-of-crops/.
