It was surprising when there were few fruits on the cherry trees at the beginning of summer, the very same trees that had blossomed with white flowers the previous spring. Most of the buds had been sunburnt and dropped before they could become fruit. We could not make sense of these small burnt fruit despite there being no frost. We stumbled upon the reason from an elderly farmer who has been taking care of cherry trees for many years. The things he had to say all showed signs of how climate change is going to affect food production:

“We had sudden rainfall just as the flowers were turning to fruit. The sun shone brightly immediately after. The raindrops acted like glass lenses, directing the hot sun beams onto the small fruit, burning them…”

People in the mountain village in which I live, in south-east of Izmir, Turkey, have been telling me that most of the vegetables and fruit they grow have ripened sooner and rotted before they could be picked. They then say “There’s something strange with the weather this year…”

In the Cayster basin, apples, walnuts and grapes all ripened 15 to 20 days early. Everybody you talk to who works with the land on the Cayster plain or on the surrounding mountains will tell you that seasons are arriving between 20 days and a month too early. The sowing and planting seasons, timed by the villagers using age-old spring and winter feasts, are now off. For example, for centuries, people used to be able to gather dew which had formed on leaves overnight on Ederlezi, a spring festival from the Anatolian folk calendar, and use it to ferment yogurt. But for the last two years, no dew could be found on the leaves on Ederlezi: it had not rained at all over the summer. We saw no more than two hours of rain until late November. And even then, it was a light shower… Our four-metre deep rain water reservoir used for irrigation is close to drying up. Friends who farm on the Cayster plain tell me that there are sink holes as deep as three metres because of the overuse of groundwater. Groundwater levels keep falling.

Whilst this is all happening at the countryside, people in towns and cities living lives cut off from nature do not realise the chain reaction climate change is having on the weather, soil, plants, animals and consequently on food production, on our palates, our bellies and our health.  Because, whilst the cherries are getting sunburnt, the tomatoes are rotting in their field and shrivelled up olives are waiting for the rain so that they can be picked, the supermarket aisles are filling up with more and more fake food. Dinner tables appear to be richer with a diverse array of shiny foods, but are losing more and more of their nutritious value.

Yes, the climate is changing and there is a lot of strangeness in the air. People working in agriculture or gardening know how periods of pollination, flowering and fruit development are closely related to the climate conditions. They also know that, in order to be pollinated, fruit and vegetables are dependent on bees, insects, birds, the wind and  certain humidity and temperature. Plants and animals are immediately affected by changes in climate because this regulates their entire cycle, everything from nutrition to reproduction. Thus, if we do not take the necessary measures or develop adaptation strategies, the strangeness in the air will continue to find its way to our dinner tables as is already the case. Yet, here is the conflict: while producing food under threat of climate change, we are not abandoning the practices causing this change. In other words, the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere causing the climate change are a by-product of widespread methods of industrial agriculture which, in turn, threaten our food, and subsequently, our health.

As an example, practices of monoculture, where hundreds of hectares of land are planted with the same plant repeatedly, seriously impoverish the soil. This causes the need for more use of pesticides and artificial fertiliser. And this, in turn, means further impoverishment and the release of more greenhouse gasses.

The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation’s (FAO) report Greening the Economy with Climate-Smart Agriculture points to how conventional farming practices account for 58% of greenhouse gasses and is a source of nitrogen oxide, mostly due to fertiliser use.

The relationship between agriculture, food and the climate

Where the relationship between agriculture, food and the climate is concerned, there is much to talk about from mass bee deaths and the damage caused by extreme drought or floods to agricultural production through to the increased packaging of food. The production, processing, packaging and transportation of food is responsible for more than a third of greenhouse gas emissions. And the real problem lies in the production phase rather than the long distances over which it is transported. For example, the harmful gasses released during the production of food accounts for more than 80% of the total life cycle emissions. World animal husbandry also accounts for about 15% of yearly carbon dioxide emissions. Similarly, pesticides, chemical fertilisers, fossil fuels for farm equipment, carbon emissions from tilling the soil and many more factors are among the main concerns of the effects of agricultural production on climate change.

FAO’s Committee on World Food Security has stressed that climate change will lead to a 16% decrease in agricultural production. This situation can lead to a fall in grain production in 65 countries and the decrease in arable land in developing countries by 11%. For example, because of the drought and untimely rains in 2014, the yield of wheat production in Turkey fell as much as 30% in some regions.