Global Agricultural Trade Pattern in A Warming World: Regional Realities

Global warming, coupled with disparate national population growth projections, could exert significant pressure on food prices, increasing the risk of food insecurity, particularly for net-importing countries. We investigated projected eventualities for a comprehensive set of 133 countries by the year 2030, and identified changes in the global agricultural crop trading pattern, with simulations from a multi-regional computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. We based our model on population growth and temperature scenarios, as per the IPCC fifth assessment report (AR5). Our simulations suggest an increase of 4.9% and 6.4% in global average prices and aggregate export crop volumes, respectively. This global exports expansion requires an increased 4.46% in current global aggregate crop output, since population growth raises demand, and thus, global average crop prices, further aggravating net importing countries’ financial burdens for food acquisition. Conversely, net exporting countries will fare better in the projected scenario due to increased agricultural income, as they are able to increase crop exports to meet the rising global demand and price. The gap in global income distribution widens, given that the majority of developing countries are coincidently located in tropical zones which are projected to experience negative crop yield shocks, while industrialized countries are located in cold and temperate zones projected to have favorable crop yield changes. National and international policy measures aimed at effectively alleviating net importing countries’ food security issues should also consider how global crop yields are geographically and diversely impacted by climate change.