What Rising CO2 Means for Global Food Security
Executive Summary
Plant production has been boosted, the need for water and fertilizer has been brought down, and field experiments show that these effects are likely to increase in coming decades.
Global food security is one of the most pressing problems facing the planet’s growing population. Continuing advances in agricultural technology and expertise will certainly increase food production in many regions, but the required doubling of production by 2100 as diets improve with rising income will still be a difficult task. Fortunately, carbon dioxide (CO2), a non-polluting gas that is created when fossil fuels are converted into energy, has proved to be a powerful plant food.
Just as it does in commercial greenhouses every day, the CO2 that has been added to the atmosphere has already “greened†the planet. Since 1900, crop production has been increased on the order of 15 to 30 percent. This White Paper’s detailed review of the latest field research shows that this effect will only improve as carbon dioxide continues to rise from four percent of one percent of the atmosphere today to, perhaps, six percent of one percent in 50 years. In addition to boosting yields per unit of land area, CO2 also boosts yields per unit of fertilizer applied and water used.
https://co2coalition.org/publications/what-rising-co2-means-for-global-food-security/
