Poor face more hunger as climate change shifts seasons

Hundreds of millions of poor farmers in developing countries are having to adapt to drought and different rainfall patterns in the struggle to grow enough food, a report warns. Some of the world's staple foods will be hit and the implications for millions could be disastrous, said the international charity Oxfam, in a report predicting the effects of climate change on people.

"Climate change's most savage impact on humanity in the near future is likely to be in the increase in hunger … in the countries with existing problems in feeding their people are those most at risk from climate change," the report warns.

The report interviewed poor farmers in 15 countries, from Bangladesh to Russia, about how the weather has changed over the years. Rains are coming too early or not at all and unexpected periods of drought or downpours are wiping out crops, leaving millions more people suffering hunger, it found. "Millions of farmers will have to give up traditional crops as they experience changes in the seasons that they and their ancestors have depended on. Climate-related hunger may become the defining human tragedy of this century."

The report, ahead of a G8 summit for world leaders, says that farmers around the world are already seeing changes in weather patterns. Generally, people said that transitional seasons such as spring and autumn have shrunk or disappeared altogether and been replaced by long periods of heat with shorter warmer winters. The rain is more unpredictable, coming at unexpected times in and out of season and dry periods last for longer and come more often. In Bangladesh, for instance, people report generally drier winters and more intense but less predictable monsoons.

The report found that people are already suffering the consequences of the changing seasons. Maize yields are forecast to drop by 15 per cent or more by 2020 in much of sub-Saharan Africa and in most of India. Rice, another staple, is also expected to drop in yield in southern countries because of unexpected weather patterns.

It also says many diseases are spreading further as temperatures rise. Malaria, dengue fever, river blindness and yellow fever are all expected to rise.

Every year, an estimated 300,000 people die because of climate change according to figures in a recent report by the think-tank, Global Humanitarian Forum.