I went to an interesting conference last fall about the implications of climate change to farming. One of the speakers was Dr. David Sauchyn. Historically, droughts would occur over a long period, and precipitation would gradually increase until there were a few consecutive years of "Wet years" Dr. Sauchyn posited that what is occurring today very dry years followed immediately by very wet years. So there is very little time in between these changes, it will be droughts followed by floods. The potential outcome of this is that shallow roots caused by dry years will be easily eroded by water the following year. If this trend continues ( and it will). Mismanaged lands will likely have the majority of their top soil stripped, causing an agricultural disaster.
I know that it is easy to pin this as a China problem, or what ever else, but the reality is that there is a great potential for this to be an economic, and environmental catastrophe in our own back yard.
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