Chain of events: a blog of Food Chain Intelligence

The report “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States: A State of Knowledge Report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program”, provides some crucial aspects that need to be considered by food producers in the US and globally.

In the following paragraphs, I summarise some key points made in reference to the climate change effects on the US production of fruit and vegetable crops. However, the report also discusses the impacts in US livestock and fisheries.

• While climate change affects agriculture, the latter also affects climate change. Agriculture contributes 13.5 % of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) globally. In the US, agriculture represents 8.6 % of the nation’s total GHG emissions.

• Higher temperatures will mean a longer growing season for crops that do well in the heat, such as melon, okra, and sweet potato, but a shorter growing season for crops more suited to cooler conditions, such as potato, lettuce, broccoli, and spinach.

• Warmer temperatures are likely to affect specialty crops in California, such as apricots, almonds, artichokes, figs, kiwis, olives, and walnuts. These crops (and other not mentioned in the list) require a minimum time of exposure to chilling temperatures during winter to induce a dormant state and be ready for fruit bearing in the next harvest season. However, the length of time where these low temperatures are achieved is already decreasing in California. The worst case scenario for economic losses is 40% for wine and table grapes, almonds, oranges, walnuts and avocados.

• Higher temperatures also cause plants to use more water to keep cool. But fruits, vegetables and grains can suffer even under well-watered conditions: if temperatures exceed the specific maximum level for pollen viability in a plant, the plant will not produce seed and therefore it will not reproduce.

• Nighttime temperatures are expected to continue to rise in the future. For example, snap beans show substantial yield reduction when nighttime temperatures exceed 26.7°C.

• Water irrigation is sometimes used to maintain adequate temperature conditions for the growth of cool season plants (such as many vegetables). With increasing competition for freshwater supplies, the water needed for these crops will be limited.

• Fruits that require long winter chilling periods (e.g.some apple varieties and berries)will experience declines. Cranberries have a particularly high chilling requirement, and there are no known low-chill varieties. It is expected that Massachusetts and New Jersey, which supply about half the US cranberry crop, will be unable to do so.

• Even crop species that are well-adapted to warmth, such as tomatoes, can have reduced yield or quality when daytime maximum temperatures exceed 32.2°C for even short periods during critical reproductive stages.

• Many insect pests and crop diseases thrive due to warming, increasing losses and necessitating greater pesticide use. Additionally, higher temperatures are known to reduce the effectiveness of certain classes of pesticides. Pesticide spraying will be needed more frequently or in higher doses.

• Predicting the optimum planting date for maximum profits will be more challenging under increased climate uncertainty. This uncertainty applies for both local production and supply from competing regions.

The report also suggests some strategies for adaptation, presented below:

• Adaptation strategies for agriculture include more efficient irrigation, shifts in cropping patterns and the use of groundwater. In particular, changing planting dates can be an effective no- or low-cost option for taking advantage of a longer growing season or avoiding crop exposure to high temperature stress or low rainfall periods. Effectiveness will depend on the region, crop, and the rate and amount of warming.

• Another adaptation strategy is changing to crop varieties with improved tolerance to heat or drought, or those that are adapted to take advantage of a longer growing season. This is less likely to be cost-effective for perennial crops, for which changing varieties is extremely expensive and new plantings take several years to reach maximum productivity.

• Even for annual crops, changing varieties is not always a low-cost option. Planting stress-tolerant varieties often requires new farming equipment or a wide range of adjustments. In some cases, it is difficult to breed for genetic tolerance to elevated temperature or to identify an alternative variety that is adapted to the new climate and to local soils, practices, and market demands.

The report has abundant scientific references backing each of their claims. For those interested in these, I recommend to go straight to the source:

Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, Thomas R. Karl, Jerry M. Melillo, and Thomas C. Peterson, (eds.). Cambridge University Press, 2009.

The 1st IIR cold chain conference, initially to be held in Singapore, has been now rescheduled to take place in Cambridge, UK on 29-31st March 2010.

The Conference will include two streams – one on the cold chain and the other on sustainability. This will broaden the target audience and will bring focus on the environment as one of the key drivers of technology today.

For more information, please visit the conference website: www.icccuk2010.com

The address of Glen Boreham “Towards a smarter economy” at the National Press Club today really captured my imagination. Glen is the Managing Director IBM Australia and New Zealand and he discussed how technology can be used to deliver solutions to current social, economic and environmental issues in Australia.

There were three particular aspects that grabbed my attention:

1) Love it or hate it, the analogy describing the $43 Billion-21st Century-High Speed-National Broadband Network as the equivalent of building rail tracks used by PM Kevin Rudd does create a mental picture of what it all means to all Australians. However, Glen asks: “what about the trains?”. There is no point in having a broadband network of the 21st century if the services that should be taking advantage of this service are of the 20th century (or 19th).

As an example, Glen made repeated mentions in his speech of a project that aims to deliver irrigation technology to decrease water use in the Murray Darling Basin. The project is a collaborative effort between IBM and the University of Melbourne. Through the application of intelligent systems and precision agriculture, water flows in fields can be better targeted to those sections of the field that really need it. Problems such as poor irrigation timing and water oversupply could be reduced to the extent of saving 15% to 20% in water usage. The cost? $200 million, according to Access Economics. The benefit? Between $420 million and $670 million to GDP and the creation of 800 jobs.

This sounds pretty good, until we investigate what is the existing actual uptake of basic IT infrastructure in rural areas and agricultural industries. According to ABS 2006 statistics (the most recent), I am sorry to report that farms have a computer and internet use below the national average. Fruit and vegetable farms are the most progressive, with computer and internet usage of 60% and 62% respectively. Grain, sheep and beef cattle farms using computer and internet represent 53% and 51%, respectively. Yet the greatest benefits of intelligent systems and precision agriculture are in broad acre crops, not in horticulture.

So, what if we have a steam train rather than a bullet train? What if rural industries can’t yet take advantage of the full power of a new broadband network? We need to start by addressing the barriers to adoption of computers and internet at farm level. Is it a lack of funding to buy software and hardware? Is it an issue of training and education? Addressing these questions and improving the uptake of simpler, already-in-the-market technologies (e.g. ERP, e-commerce, electronic inventory systems, GPS) is more important now than ever if we want to ensure that Australian agriculture can make use of new information technology.

2) Australia should not separate strategies for the development of physical infrastructure separate from digital infrastructure. It follows that all new road, rail and port project spending should consider the embedded digital technologies that should accompany this infrastructure.

Now, we could be cynical and say that this would be good business for IBM. It would be. But we also know that it is not all about concrete and mortar anymore. New roads need the means to control traffic and charge tolls, new ports also need traffic controllers and positioning systems and so on. Going back to the Access Economics report, they estimate that the adoption of smart, integrated transport systems accompanied by regulatory reforms would bring benefits of $12-$26 billion over a 10-year period and would create 30,000 jobs in the present financial scenario. If these numbers are right, I don’t see any problem with IBM and other IT companies profiting from it. Would you?

3) The interdependent nature of digital technology means that it is not enough to advance one area of the economy: we need to advance all areas. I could not agree more and my point (1) emphasizes this.

History tells us that the most innovative advances in food supply chains happen at retail level. And according to Glen Boreham, there are good reasons for this. He estimates that retail businesses lose US$1.5 trillion in excess inventory every year, worldwide. Annual global losses in lost sales due to not having the right product at the right time reach US$120 billion.

Retail-led innovations have focused on efficient consumer response (ECR), electronic data interchange (EDI) and traceability, all of which depend on IT capabilities. Further, they rely on the joint development of strategic plans and collaboration between retailers and their suppliers. Therefore, retailers lead innovation by example across all the supply chain. Right?

Well, not exactly. Due to the perception of market power of retailers in Australia, suppliers of agricultural goods to supermarkets can see retail-led innovation efforts as an imposition. There are examples that illustrate this discomfort: retail-ready packaging, recyclable plastic crates and RFID clearly bring cost and operational advantages to supermarkets, but the case for farmers is not as strong. The benefits of better inventory management or better cold chains are not necessarily seen in the bottom line of farmers. Costs and risk sharing is not necessarily shared among supply chain “partners”. So, it is no wonder that farmers may feel pushed into innovation rather than encouraged into it.

To me, crucial questions are: Do current innovation models look across the food (or pharma or automotive) supply chains and encourage collaboration? Are risks and benefits of innovation equally distributed across the chain? Is the model sustainable?

All those who read my blog know that I am all for innovation. But innovation within a framework and a context that make sense to those involved.

And I do wish that we had a better model for national innovation. Developing a green paper such as the “Venturous Australia” report is part of the answer. Developing a white paper that supports innovation but that doesn’t fully address the need for a national model and where the funding starts in 2010 is better than nothing. But developing a bionic eye or a better broadband just because someone in the top thinks it is a good idea is not my idea of an innovation model. I have seen this too many times: the pet project, the emperor’s new clothes. Those who would like to see a thorough plan to distribute the benefits of innovation and technology to all, from inventors through to farmers to manufacturers to consumers, say ‘aye’. This, and not just technology for its own sake, will truly make us a smarter country.

PS. The Access Economics report “The Economic Benefits of Intelligent Technologies” can be accessed here.