05/29/08 Global Impact

Global Impact. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. We hear about global warming but as we northwesters are still putting on a jacket during one of the longest, coolest springs on record; we are asking the question&What global warming? The USDA has released a new report on the subject that looks down the road at the next 25 to 50 years and according to Jerry Hatfield with the USDA's Agriculture Research Service, we are already seeing some effects. One of the main effects is that plants tend to mature earlier. HATFIELD: The increased temperature causes plants to grow faster which is not necessarily a good thing because the faster they grow actually the smaller they are and it does offset some of the impacts of CO2. Also the warmer it is during the reproductive stage of plants has an impact on pollination as well as grain set. The report was led by the USDA and encompassed 38 federal and non-government agencies and is based on earlier studies that show the growing season has increased by almost 2 weeks in the last 20-years. Plants are not the only thing affected by higher temperatures. Livestock is impacted as well. HATFIELD: The extreme events of temperature impacts these animals in terms of their feed consumption, their rate of gain, their dairy production so there are positive and negative impacts on agriculture that we all need to be aware of and what it means for our food supply for the future. Costs are going up across the board and Hatfield says that the projection of the effects of global warming will only add to that increase. HATFIELD: When you start looking at temperature responses and CO2 responses and then the variability of precipitation is yes, we could be in for some extreme variations in crop production because they're so dependant upon water availability to make them grow. Other factors of global warming can include more forest fires - insect outbreaks - more northerly weed migration - and greater yield losses to fruits and vegetables than less sensitive grains and oilseed. The upside to the whole issue is that young forests and crops utilize and lock up carbon dioxide which is the main cause of global warming. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.