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Heat and agriculture

Extreme heat is an increasingly significant threat to food security, disrupting food production, processing, storage, distribution, and access across local, national, and global food systems.

Rising temperatures, prolonged heatwaves, and sustained heatwaves can reduce crop yields, stress livestock, degrade soil moisture, and strain water resources, with cascading impacts along food supply chains. See below for the latest selections related to extreme heat's impact on agriculture.

Faced with extreme heat, farmers are turning to the forest for solutions.
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Research briefs
Spring irrigation can reduce summer heat wave events

New research has investigated the dampening effect irrigating land in spring can have on the intensity of summer heat waves by retaining higher soil moisture levels between seasons, known as soil moisture memory.

PhysOrg, Omicron Technology Ltd
Women working in an agricultural field in the outskirts of Samarkand, Uzbekistan
Update
Heatwaves and floods affect rural women and men differently

New study shows how the effects of climate change on income and adaptation in rural areas vary with gender, wealth and age.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
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Documents and publications
The unjust climate: Measuring the impacts of climate change on rural poor, women and youth

This report assembles an impressive set of data from 24 low- and middle-income countries in five world regions to measure the effects of climate change on rural women, youths and people living in poverty.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
A pastoralist awaits the sale of his drought affected cattle at an NGO supported destocking market near Isiolo, Eastern Province, Kenya
Research briefs
Global food production at risk

The future of global food production is under threat as temperature rises will impact farmers’ physical capacity to work, a new study has revealed.

Loughborough University
African farmer feeding his cows.
Update
Australia: Hot weather forces farmers to find ways to keep cattle cool

With a heatwave building across large parts of the country, farmers are deploying innovative measures to protect their livestock against the dangers of hot weather.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Update
Spain: Warmer Mediterranean threatens mussel farms

Rising sea temperatures are killing mussels in Spain's Ebro delta and shellfish output is also suffering from Greece to Canada.

Context
Update
If Africa’s farmers fail to adapt to a hotter world, we all fail

Securing a safer planet for all means adopting nature-friendly ways to produce and consume food, and use land.

Context
Cover
Documents and publications
Heat is associated with short-term increases in household food insecurity in 150 countries and this is mediated by income

This study exploits variations in heat levels during a household survey spanning 150 countries in a quasi-natural experiment to show that particularly hot weeks are associated with higher chances of food insecurity among households

Nature Human Behaviour
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