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Chapter 5 : Food Security — Special Report on Climate Change and Land
Climate change negatively affects all four pillars of food security: availability, access, utilisation and stability. Food availability may be reduced by negative climate change impacts on productivity of crops, livestock and fish, due, for instance, to increases in temperature and changes in rainfall patterns. Productivity is also negatively affected by increased pests and diseases, as well as changing distributions of pollinators under climate change. Food access and its stability may be affected through disruption of markets, prices, infrastructure, transport, manufacture, and retail, as well as direct and indirect changes in income and food purchasing power of low-income consumers. Food utilisation may be directly affected by climate change due to increases in mycotoxins in food and feed with rising temperatures and increased frequencies of extreme events, and indirectly through effects on health. Elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations can increase yields at lower temperature increases, but tend to decrease protein content in many crops, reducing their nutritional values. Extreme events, for example, flooding, will affect the stability of food supply directly through disruption of transport and markets.
