Is it just me or is it getting warmer in here?
By Jock O’Connell
About four years ago, I got a call one summer afternoon so hot that the dog sitting on my neighbor’s porch only rolled his eyes at passing cats. The call came from a man asking if I could put him in touch with companies that process fresh fruits, especially citrus. As it happened, I knew a few people over at the California League of Food Processors. But before referring him along, I wanted to know who he was and, more importantly, who he was representing.
“Saskatchewan,” he said. “I work for the Province of Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Agriculture.”
Displaying my acute knowledge of Canadian geography, I replied: “Saskatchewan, isn’t that up there somewhere between…well…somewhere between British Columbia and Newfoundland?”
“That’s aboot right,” he generously replied.
Turns out the folks up in Regina, Saskatchewan’s capital (located some 300 miles north of Billings, Montana) had been reading news reports about the drought, hotter temperatures, and higher smog levels that were then posing an existential threat to farming in California’s Central Valley. Mostly, though, they had been talking about climate change and how, in the fullness of time, Saskatchewan’s farmers might be able to turn away from growing wheat and barley to producing much more lucrative specialty crops like fresh fruits, nuts, and vegetables. You know, the food items future California farmers might have trouble producing as the climate heats up. Hence, the Saskatchewanians’ interest in sitting down with food processors.
After hanging up, I suddenly, uncomfortably, remembered my youth growing up in Maine and what people do when forced to endure long, frigid winters. They dream about spring and all the springs to come. I wish Saskatchewan well, although, like Saint Augustine, not right away.
Now comes a study from Moody’s Analytics that takes a broad look at how, among other calamities, rising temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns could dramatically affect agricultural production around the world. Titled “The Economic Implications of Climate Change,” the June 2019 analysis quantifies the economic costs of climate change through the remainder of the century. It is not a comforting read. (Spoiler alert: Things get much worse following the intermission, in 2050.)
Moody’s cautions that, although the changes will not be uniform across regions and crops, growing seasons are generally expected to lengthen in colder climates and shorten in warmer ones. The report concludes that, without adaptation, “agricultural productivity will decrease in more regions than it will increase, especially as the increase in average global temperature rises.”
It was of course sheer coincidence that the Moody Analytics report came out just as growers in the Upper Midwest were experiencing the sort of biblical rains and flooding that could wipe out an entire season’s crop production. But where the heartland farmers justifiably fear too much rain, the absence of rain has been the more acute concern of farmers in the Western states and especially in California.
In that respect, Moody’s conclusions are roughly consistent with the findings of a study last year from the University of California at Merced, which warned of changes in rainfall patterns that could lead to a greater likelihood of drought conditions throughout the state.
In addition, warmer temperatures could reduce yields of such crops as wine grapes, strawberries and nuts, while shorter chill seasons will make for conditions less favorable to growing cherries, apricots, apples and pears. Worse still is the likelihood of an invasion of plant diseases and pests not seen before.
The UC Merced report concluded that almost all of California’s crops, together valued at more than $50 billion a year, would be placed at risk by rising temperatures and unstable weather patterns caused by climate change. The state will face wildly fluctuating precipitation patterns, leading to severe droughts and flooding, warming temperatures, more heat waves, and shorter chill seasons. The researchers wrote that the increased rate and scale of climate change “is beyond the realm of experience for the agricultural community,” and that changes in the state’s crop output “would not only translate into national food security issues, but also economic impacts that could disrupt state and national commodity systems.”
And international trade, we might add.
Little of this is new. Eight years ago, the California Department of Food and Agriculture convened a forum on the risks of climate change to the state’s food production that touched on the same worrisome findings as the UC Merced study. That forum helped inform the Brown administration’s push for aggressive measures to deal with climate change.
Similar assessments have been underway in the Pacific Northwest. Washington State, the nation’s third largest exporter of food and agricultural products, has initiated several projects aimed at identifying potential impacts of climate change on its agricultural economy and has collaborated with Oregon and Idaho on similar inquiries. The tri-state region is geographically and climatically heterogenous. So impacts will vary considerably. In general, climate change in the Pacific Northwest is projected to lead to warmer temperatures, especially in summer; more frost-free days; wetter winters, and more variability in temperature and precipitation. However, the effects of climate change are expected to be less severe than in subtropical regions to the south and may even be beneficial for certain types of farming.
While farming communities both nationally and in the western states have ample reason to ponder the possible effects of warmer temperatures and more erratic weather patterns, whatever outcomes eventuate will have a major bearing on port operations throughout the country and especially along the West Coast.
Indeed, the prospects of decreased yields or outright abandonment of certain crops does not bode well for West Coast ports for the simple reason that agricultural exports, as Peter Friedman of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition is always quick to remind us, represent a prodigious share of the goods shipped from ports up and down the Pacific Coast. In addition to serving as vital conduits for agricultural commodities shipped from the Midwest to markets in East Asia, the nation’s Pacific Coast ports also serve the farm exporters within their own immediate catchment areas. And, with California as far and away America’s top exporter of agricultural goods, that’s big business.
So let’s take a look at the latest export numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Foreign Trade Division.
By weight (kilos in the accompanying tables), crude oil and various petroleum products top the list of exports from mainland U.S. ports. Agricultural shipments (highlighted in blue) are important but not, as we shall see, as dominant a factor as they are on the Pacific Coast.
As the next table indicates, the mix of leading waterborne exports from U.S. West Coast ports is more weighted toward food and fiber. The numbers below include not only the five major seaports along the USWC but the smaller ports (such as those along the Columbia River) which have traditionally handled a significant volume of grain and soybean shipments to Asia from the Midwest.
At the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, shipments of scrap and waste materials loom large, but the ports also handle significant volumes of agricultural exports, although for understandable reasons the numbers this year generally trail behind the previous year’s volumes.
By comparison with the Southern California ports, the numbers from the Northwest Seaport Alliance Ports of Tacoma and Seattle clearly reflect those ports’ much stronger link to the nation’s agricultural hinterland as well as their role in the agricultural export trades of the Pacific Northwest.
And then there is Oakland with its unique mix of exports that mirror the port’s proximity to what is arguably the most valuable agricultural real estate on the planet.
So there it is. No less than farmers and ranchers, USWC ports have a major stake in how changing climate conditions will affect American agriculture and its ability to continue to feed the needs for food and fiber of consumers around the world.
The commentary, views, and opinions expressed by Jock O’Connell are his own and do not reflect the views or positions of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association. PMSA does not endorse, support, or make any representations regarding the content provided by any third party commentator.