Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change - weADAPT

urban food supply chains. Thus, while the effects of more variable rainfall patterns,more very hot days, more severe storms and changing patterns of vector bornediseases are likely to have profound effects on traditional agricultural practices ingeneral, they will also affect urban agriculture.In Australia, the climate projections from the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology(CSIRO 2007) show which elements of significance to agriculture will change mostunder climate change. The National Food Plan consultation document (DAFF, 2011)presents projections which show that: Temperatures in Australia could increase by 2.2°C to 5°C by 2070;Annual rainfall in south-west Australia could reduce by up to 10%, and by 2 to5% elsewhere in southern Australia;Drought occurrence could increase over most of Australia, but particularly insouth-west Australia;Australia‘s climate will remain highly variable with the early effects of climatechange being felt through gradual changes in mean temperature, as well asthrough likely changes in the frequency, duration and/or intensity of extremeevents, such as droughts, heatwaves, fires and floods;Although there may be more dry days, when it does rain, rainfall may be heavierthan previously experienced in the region;Hot days and warm nights are projected to become more frequent.Climate changes are likely to affect agriculture productivity in a number of ways, due toplant and animal heat stress, less predictable seasons, crop and livestock losses fromflood and drought and changes in the regional suitability of certain production systems.One of the most significant reviews of food security in Australia is included in the recentreport from PMSEIC (2010), entitled Australian and Food Security in a ChangingWorld. This notes that climate change will have a number of direct impacts on foodproduction as a result of changing patterns of rainfall, more very hot days and soilerosion. However, there are also likely to be significant indirect effects such asdisruptions to supply lines as a result of floods, cyclones and more very hot days.Nonetheless, a government view as portrayed by the Australian Bureau of Agriculturaland Resource Economics (ABARE) is relatively sanguine. While Australia’s economicoutput is likely to be affected by climate change effects on agriculture, in the long term,climate change does not present a substantial physical threat to Australia’s physicalfood security (Sheales and Gunning-Grant, 2009). In addition, trade and participation inthe global economy is likely to continue to buffer the impact of threats to Australia’sfood security (Moir and Morris, 2011).While the policy discourse is relatively stable around the findings of the CSIRO and theassumption that trade and open markets will prevent a food security risk in Australia,an emerging body of scientific literature is providing a more nuanced and critical viewof the impacts of climate change compared to the government’s responses. Forexample, Bloom et al., (2010) show that as atmospheric CO2 rises, plants (in this case,wheat and Arabidopsis) will have more trouble absorbing nitrates into their tissuesUrban food security, urban resilience and climate change 18