By 2100, the areas of the world currently suitable for farming and those no longer arable could flip flop, according to a new study published in the journal PLOS One. As fertile spots in the Mediterranean and parts of sub-Saharan Africa become too arid to grow anything, areas in northern Russia, Canada, and China are poised to become less tundralike—and more farming-friendly. This may not sound so bad, except that it’s not an even exchange. “Globally, there will be more area suitable for agriculture until the end of the century, but at the same time, average global suitability will worsen,” says study author Florian Zabel, an agriculture and climate change researcher at Ludwig Maximilians University in Germany. MORE: The Crafty Way Whole Foods Is Forcing Farms to Grow Clean In other words, growing conditions at new North Pole farms won’t be as awesome as those at their baked-out counterparts used to be, so they’ll yield less food. And even though hardy barley, potatoes, and corn will probably grow like swimsuit sales in a warmer Siberia, it still won’t be warm enough to raise delicious things like almonds and dates that require near-perfect weather. (So to grow bananas in Canada, we might have to wait until 2200. Sorry! In case you’re skeptical that climate-driven upheavals to our agricultural system are really a “thing,” news flash: It’s already happening. Thanks to warmer winters and earlier springs, Vermont’s maple syrup output has plummeted since 1950. Meanwhile, the olives that previously only flourished in frost-free places such as Greece, Italy, and Spain are sprouting in the very un-Mediterranean state of Oregon, where growers this past summer reported record high nighttime low temps. Some food for thought, eh?
