Washington Insider-- Thursday
Climate Change and Wheat
Here’s a quick monitor of Washington farm and trade policy issues from DTN’s well-placed observer.
In Wake of Avian Flu Outbreak, Vilsack Expects Congress to Rethink Poultry Insurance ProgramUSDA continues to report more avian influenza cases, albeit at a lower number, and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack was in Iowa trying to address producer frustration over how avian influenza is being handled. Vilsack recalled the Obama administration during the 2014 farm bill debate proposed a poultry insurance program but Congress nixed the idea due to funding concerns. “I will tell you, as a result of this particular circumstance, certainly Congress will rethink that, as they should,” Vilsack said.
Nationwide, Vilsack said, the disease has impacted nearly 200 sites and more than 40 million birds, or roughly 9% of the country’s egg-laying birds and 7% of its turkeys. “The size and magnitude of this is unprecedented,” he said. The federal government expects to compensate impacted farmers to the tune of more than $150 million, he said, and that number could go even higher, depending on how long the disease continues to impact flocks.
The number of cases of bird flu in the US has started to decline and the epidemic is likely to be over within a couple of months, helped by warm weather in the summer, the US chief veterinary officer said on May 26. “We believe the worst is behind us, which doesn’t mean that we still won’t see additional cases but we know we see a decline in cases,” said John Clifford, Chief Veterinary Officer for USDA. However, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) expects the epidemic to be under control by September – a longer timeline than USDA’s Clifford.
Obama Administration Releases Final WOTUS Rule
The Obama administration has launched a comprehensive regulation to protect the nation’s waterways and wetlands, a controversial initiative that will face lawmaker and opposition from many in the agriculture, oil and housing industries.
The EPA’s final “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule is meant to define which streams, rivers, ponds and wetlands fall under the reach of the Clean Water Act, a question that two Supreme Court rulings have left muddled.
Opponents to the rule will focus on whether or not EPA made major changes based on the many comments and meetings held regarding the matter. Previously, opponents denounced the rule as a massive power grab that could put federal bureaucrats in charge of isolated ditches and prairie potholes, and they’re widely expected to challenge it in court.
P[L1] D[0x0] M[300x250] OOP[F] ADUNIT[] T[]
The House has already passed a bill to block the rule, and the Senate is considering similar legislation amid complaints from conservatives that President Barack Obama is waging a major regulatory assault on businesses.
Washington Insider: Climate Change and Wheat
The topic of climate change remains highly controversial in the United States, but somewhat less so in other developed countries—including among the G20 that includes the finance ministers and central bank governors of 19 economically powerful countries that span the globe, plus the EU. Among the economic policies the group is considering these days is the potential impacts of climate change on wheat.
“Wheat is one of the main staple crops in the world and provides 20% of daily protein and calories,” according to the Wheat Initiative, a project recently launched by the G20 agricultural ministers. “With a world population of 9 billion in 2050, wheat demand is expected to increase by 60%. To meet the demand, annual wheat yield increases must grow from the current level of below 1% to at least 1.6%.”
There are growing concerns that that target will not be achieved.
Press reports indicate that the group is discussing and evaluating the finding of a new study reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It suggests that a warming climate could cut wheat yields in the United States and, possibly, elsewhere. “The net effect of warming on yields is negative,” according to Jesse Tack of the agricultural economics department of Mississippi State University and two colleagues, “even after accounting for the benefits of reduced exposure to freezing temperatures.”
This is especially important, the study notes, since wheat is “the largest source of vegetable protein in low-income countries.”
The study compared results from nearly 30 years of winter wheat trials across Kansas — a state that produced $2.8 billion worth of wheat crop in 2013 — with data on weather and precipitation. Winter wheat grows from September to May and faces two major temperature-related threats during this cycle — extreme winter cold, and extreme spring heat.
Global warming is expected to reduce the freezing temperatures but also increase the intensity of really hot periods. The study concluded that on balance, the effect is more negative than positive, with a roughly 15% decline in wheat yields under a 2 degrees Celsius warming scenario, rising to around 40% with 4 degrees (C) of warming.
Experts believe that the Kansas-based results can be extrapolated readily to other wheat-growing regions around the world, says lead author Tack. Whenever warming pushes temperatures in a given place to more frequently reach 34 degrees Celsius (or 92.3 degrees Fahrenheit) during the growing season could affect wheat output very significantly.
“The tipping point is 34 degrees Celsius,” says Tack. “In terms of the estimated warming impacts, it’s largely going to be a matter of whether the new climate has increased exposure over 34 degrees.”
That means that if you were in a cooler and more northerly region, one where 34 degrees isn’t very common, but where global warming actually cut down on the number of freezing days in the fall, wheat yields could be increased--so efforts to adapt to warming temperatures would likely shift wheat output toward the poles.
The study also found that the wheat varieties that breeders have been creating of late are less temperature-resistant than older varieties and that there may be an important “tradeoff between average (mean) yield and ability to resist extreme heat across varieties.” It also found that the heat resistance of newer seed varieties is lower than historical ones, raising questions about the current path of wheat breeding efforts: Are they too focused on average yield?” asks Tack.
Yet another factor that is critical to the wheat outlook is water, which can, to some extent, offset hot temperatures, according to the study. If there’s more rainfall or better irrigation of wheat fields, then hot temperatures won’t take as much of a toll. At the same time, a key question is the extent to which water availability is threatened by climate change. Clearly, “…if things get drier and there’s no irrigation, that’s going to further enhance the negative effects of warming temperatures,” according to Tack.
As expected, a broad range of questions remain to be addresses. However, it is increasingly clear that producers have an enormous stake in the climate change controversy and the potential of policies to affect changes. The blizzard of facts and figures now being released is hard to comprehend and assess, but needs to be watched carefully by stakeholders as it continues, Washington Insider believes.
Want to keep up with events in Washington and elsewhere throughout the day? See DTN Top Stories, our frequently updated summary of news developments of interest to producers. You can find DTN Top Stories in DTN Ag News, which is on the Main Menu on classic DTN products and on the News and Analysis Menu of DTN’s Professional and Producer products. DTN Top Stories is also on the home page and news home page of online.dtn.com. Subscribers of MyDTN.com should check out the US Ag Policy, US Farm Bill and DTN Ag News sections on their News Homepage.
If you have questions for DTN Washington Insider, please email edit@telventdtn.com
(GH/CZ)
Copyright 2015 DTN/The Progressive Farmer. All rights reserved.