• “Flash Droughts” More Frequent as Climate Warms

    ‘Flash droughts’ have become more frequent due to human-caused climate change, and this trend is predicted to accelerate in a warmer future. Flash droughts, which start and develop rapidly, are becoming ‘the new normal’ for droughts, making forecasting and preparing for their impact more difficult.

  • It’s Time to Talk about Food and Agriculture Security

    When large scale threats affect food and agriculture supplies, they become matters of national security. Many different threats to our food and agriculture sector exist, and any disruption to the supply chain can cause shortages at your local grocery store and limit the availability of food.

  • Predicting Threats to Food Security

    Pests and diseases remain one of the biggest threats to food production, increasingly destabilizing food security and livelihoods across climate-vulnerable regions around the world,” says one expert. Mathematical modelling can prevent crop devastation and preserve livelihoods.

  • Few Island Nations with Potential to Produce Enough Food in a Nuclear Winter

    New Zealand is one of only a few island nations that could continue to produce enough food to feed its population in a nuclear winter, researchers have found. The term “nuclear winter” refers to reduced sunlight and cooler temperatures caused by soot in the atmosphere following a nuclear war in the Northern Hemisphere.

  • Achieving Foundational Security for Food Systems

    U.S. cereal crops such as corn, rice, and wheat feed hundreds of millions of Americans and millions more around the world. Ensuring active defense of these and other staple food grasses is a critical national security priority. New DARPA project seeks advanced threat-detection and warning capabilities for crop defense.

  • Phosphorus Supply Is Increasingly Disrupted – We Are Sleepwalking into a Global Food Crisis

    Without phosphorus food cannot be produced, since all plants and animals need it to grow. Put simply: if there is no phosphorus, there is no life. All farmers therefore need access to it, but 85% of the world’s remaining high-grade phosphate rock is concentrated in just five countries, making the global food system extremely vulnerable to disruptions.

  • Nuclear War Would Cause Global Famine

    More than 5 billion people would die of hunger following a full-scale nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, according to a global study that estimates post-conflict crop production. Even a regional nuclear conflict would devastate crop production.

  • Rise of Precision Agriculture Exposes Food System to New Threats

    Farmers are adopting precision agriculture, using data collected by GPS, satellite imagery, internet-connected sensors and other technologies to farm more efficiently. These practices could help increase crop yields and reduce costs, but the technology behind the practices is creating opportunities for extremists, terrorists and adversarial governments to attack farming machinery, with the aim of disrupting food production.

  • Growing the Impacts of Climate-Smart Agriculture

    A range of ‘climate-smart’ farming practices have the potential to lower that impact, and also help sequester carbon dioxide emitted by other parts of the economy. For example, planting cover crops in between plantings of cash crops can absorb CO2 into the soil, among other benefits. However, cover crops and other climate-smart practices aren’t yet the norm.

  • For Advance Drought Warning, Look to the Plants

    Among the extreme weather impacts resulting from climate change, drought is a growing problem around the globe, leading to frequent wildfires, threats to water resources, and greater food insecurity. Researchers find signals in vegetation can help forecast devastating ‘flash’ droughts.

  • Amid Climate Change and Conflict, More Resilient Food Systems a Must: Report

    Increased demand for water will be the No. 1 threat to food security in the next 20 years, followed closely by heat waves, droughts, income inequality and political instability.

  • Is Australia’s Biosecurity System Ready for Foot-and-Mouth Disease?

    Several reports have highlighted the inevitable and growing threats to Australia’s security and prosperity. Chief among these are the biosecurity risks that threaten one of Australia’s greatest strategic advantages: The country’s ability to feed and clothe twice its own population, its food security, and ultimately its national security.

  • Groundwater Depletion Causes California Farmland to Sink

    A new study simulates 65 years of land subsidence, or sinking, caused by groundwater depletion in California’s San Joaquin Valley. The results suggest significant sinking may continue for centuries after water levels stop declining but could slow within a few years if aquifers recover.

  • China’s Growing Agricultural Problems Pose Risks for the U.S.

    China is facing a growing demand on its agricultural production. The Chinese government has taken several domestic initiatives to address the growing problem, but it has also gone abroad to address its needs through investments and acquisitions of farmland, animal husbandry, agricultural equipment, and intellectual property (IP), particularly of GM seeds These efforts present several risks to U.S. economic and national security.

  • Food Production Vulnerable to Cyberattacks

    Wide-ranging use of smart technologies is raising global agricultural production but cyber experts warn this digital-age phenomenon could reap a crop of another kind – cybersecurity attacks.