The global shift in rainfall will see many current food producing areas suffer from drought or low crop yields by 2020 according to an article published in the journal Nature this week.

While Europe, North America, Chile, West Africa and Australia are all headed for an overall reduction in rainfall, East Africa, Pakistan, western and northern China, Siberia and Alaska will be much wetter.

It is expected that rainfall events will be much more chaotic and dramatic, leading to disastrous floods rather than increased food production.

The food shortages resulting from this change will be compounded by disputes over the increasingly limited water supply.

Time to Prepare for Food and Water Shocks

A changing climate means less rain in regions where much of the planet’s food is produced. Future scenarios for water supply show that diminished water supplies will be apparent by 2020 and are expected to grow worse by 2030. Just like the retreat of glaciers and polar sea ice, now clouds and rain are retreating poleward. This will have huge implications for agricultural production, industrial and energy output, and municipal water provisioning.

http://www.wri.org/blog/2016/07/clouds-head-poles-time-prepare-food-and-water-shocks