The source article for this piece can be found on the FAO Statistics website.

Sustainable agriculture: the key role of data

The transition to more productive and sustainable agriculture and food systems must be driven by accurate, reliable and up-to-date information. Temperature variations, the latest trends in land use, livestock patterns, and similar data, can provide invaluable insights into how to adjust our actions, in our attempt to achieve a Zero Hunger world.

FAO collects global data relevant to food and agriculture in order to share knowledge and facilitate informed decision making. These data are made available by FAOSTAT through its database, articles and announcements.

Food and agriculture in a changing climate

While the planet has been consistently getting warmer since the late 18th century, data suggest that this process appears to be accelerating.

With still more than 820 million people without enough food to eat, this is of even greater concern for food security and nutrition, as rising temperatures can radically hamper food production. Higher temperatures and greater humidity are likely to favour the spread of crop and animal pests and diseases across borders. In addition, increasing climate-induced food losses are leading to an expansion in agricultural land at the expense of forests, which are in turn leading to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Those most at risk in this process are vulnerable communities .

A global trend

Already in this decade, we have experienced eight of the ten warmest years on record. Furthermore, temperature increases appear to be accelerating: the average change between 1991 and 2000 (0.58°C) was less than half the increase since 2011 (1.26⁰C).

This is mirrored in colder climates. For over two decades now, since 1993, no country has recorded colder than usual average annual temperatures.

Changes at all levels

The impact of climate change is affecting regions and countries alike. Thus far, with an average annual temperature change of 2.1⁰C in 2019, Europe appears to be recording the most significant temperature changes.  Looking at 10-year averages, the largest increase since 2001 was once again recorded in Europe with Asia recording the smallest. Looking at the current decade, all regions across the world had a 10-year average annual temperature change of 1.0 ⁰C or more. In other words, no region in the world has got colder over the past ten years.

Figure 1. Mean annual temperature change over land. Global and regional trends by recent decade.

Record-breaking temperature changes at country level

This worrying trend is also observed in countries, with 40 countries experiencing record-breaking temperature changes in 2019. 

During the same year, the vast majority of countries (at least 150) had a average annual temperature change that was 1.0⁰C higher than normal, with about half of them recording changes even greater than 1.5⁰C.

Figure 2. Number of countries and territories with record mean annual temperature change over land for a specific year, between 1961-2019.

Next steps

The global response to climate change today will determine how we feed future generations tomorrow. Part of this equation is innovative approaches to agriculture, including Climate Smart Agriculture and Agroecology. By transforming their agriculture sectors, countries have the chance mitigate and adapt to climate change in order to achieve food security for all.