Latest news with #UniversityofIllinoisUrbana-Champaign
Boston Globe
15-07-2025
- General
- Boston Globe
Chinese students flocked to Central Illinois. Their food followed.
For the more than 6,000 students from China in Urbana and Champaign, the wealth of products and dishes from back home can make the two cities seem like a mirage rising from the plains of central Illinois. Surrounded by miles of flat, green fields of soy and grain corn, the cities have a combined population of about 127,000 people and a skyline that rarely pokes above 15 stories. The area isn't anybody's idea of a major metropolitan center. It certainly isn't the first place you'd think to look when you are in the mood for serious Chinese food. Get Winter Soup Club A six-week series featuring soup recipes and cozy vibes, plus side dishes and toppings, to get us all through the winter. Enter Email Sign Up After a quick walk from the university's main quad, though, you can sit down to a faithful rendition of spicy bullfrog hot pot in a Sichuanese broth studded with green peppercorns. A nearby restaurant serves yangrou paomo, a Shaanxi lamb soup with floating scraps of flatbread that is a favorite in Xi'an. If you are struck by a late-night craving for stinky tofu in the style of Changsha, you can get it after 8:30 p.m. from a chef who dresses fried black cubes of fermented bean curd in a glistening orange chile oil, the way vendors do on the streets of Hunan's capital city. Advertisement You'd have to hunt to find these dishes in a major city like Chicago, 135 miles away, but they have become a fixture of life in Champaign and Urbana. At least two dozen Chinese restaurants, bakeries, bubble-tea shops and Asian grocery stores are clustered close to the campus. Along a five-block stretch of Green Street, the main commercial strip in the part of Champaign known as Campustown, window posters and sidewalk sandwich boards advertise dumplings, noodles and stir-fries in larger-than-life color photographs captioned in Chinese and usually, but not always, English. Advertisement The Golden Harbor restaurant, which has more than 1,000 items on the menu, in Champaign. Like many college towns, the area around the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has been transformed by a surge of foreign students, but visa clampdowns could threaten that. ANJALI PINTO/NYT Most of these places are quite new. Almost all have opened in the past 15 years. Dai Shi, a local pastry chef originally from Fuzhou, first visited Champaign in 2010, when her parents owned a Chinese restaurant in town. They had only a handful of competitors, she said. At the time, about 1,100 students from China attended the university. Now there are more than five times as many, and the campus area has become a little Chinatown on the prairie. New York University enrolls more Chinese students than any other school in the United States. But the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is in a virtual tie for second place with the University of Southern California, according a New York Times analysis of 2023 visa data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Related : Urbana and Champaign are not the only places where the surge in international students has changed the local culture and economy. But the area's rural isolation and unusually large population of Chinese students make it a striking example of that change. Advertisement In the coming months or years, they may also make it something of a laboratory for the effects of the Trump administration's cuts to research budgets and clampdowns on visas for international students, especially those from China. Feast in a cornfield College-age students in China have a nickname for the University of Illinois: yu mi de . It means the Cornfield. The university is better known there for its surrounding farmland and its strengths in STEM fields like engineering and computer science than for its proximity to crunchy Northern-style stir-fried pork intestines. Each August, hundreds of new Chinese students show up with no inkling that the Cornfield is full of foods they grew up on. More than 270,000 students from China attended American colleges and universities last year. Restaurants catering to them represent a new wave in Chinese dining in the United States. In Manhattan, the blocks around NYU and Columbia, which 20 years ago held little appeal to fans of Chinese food, have become troves of Shanghai drunken crab and Hong Kong-style barbecue pork buns. You can find high-level Chinese cooking near campuses in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Iowa City, Iowa. They are more cosmopolitan than the linoleum-floored joints in the old urban Chinatowns that started out feeding home-style cooking to villagers from Guangdong in the early 20th century. They are more up-to-date than the palaces of aristocratic Chinese cuisine overseen by highly trained chefs who fled the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and '70s. Aimed at younger customers whose memories of China are still fresh, they tend to be informal, fairly inexpensive if not rock-bottom cheap, and faithful in recreating true regional cuisines. Advertisement Dishes at Northern Cuisine include crispy pork in sweet and sour glaze, stewed pork belly in a toasted bun and wok-fried crispy pork intestine with dry chili, in Champaign. ANJALI PINTO/NYT Students in Urbana and Champaign trade intel on regional dishes in group texts in Chinese on the social-media apps RedNote and WeChat. The most useful sources for exploring menus around the Cornfield are the Asian-food-delivery apps Hungry Panda and Fantuan, whose vehicles, bearing a logo of an anthropomorphic dumpling, are as common on the streets as red-and-blue Domino's cars are in other American college towns. The drivers 'are all Chinese people,' Qian said. 'When they reach my apartment, they call me and speak Mandarin right away.' 'Everyone is buckled up' A year ago on the campaign trail, President Donald Trump proposed that all international students who graduated from U.S. colleges be granted green cards 'automatically.' After taking office in January, Trump chose a different path. His administration froze applications for student visas in May. When the process started up again a month later, the State Department put out new orders for stricter vetting of applicants' 'online presence' — looking for, among other things, signs of 'hostility' toward the United States. Consulates were told to give priority to applicants bound for schools where international students make up less than 15% of the total. That statistic at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is above 20%. Chinese nationals, who made up more than a quarter of the 1.1 million international students in the United States last year, face extra scrutiny. In May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the government would 'aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students.' Whether tighter screening and delays will cut into the number of international students at the University of Illinois in the coming academic year won't be clear until September, said Robin Kaler, an associate chancellor. Advertisement Until then, faculty, administrators and local businesses are bracing for the impact. A significant drop could have a major economic effect on college towns like Urbana and Champaign. International students in Illinois spend $2.4 billion a year and support more than 23,000 jobs in the state, according to a 2024 analysis by NAFSA, a professional association for international educators. Tuition is the biggest expenditure, but real estate, car dealerships and other businesses also benefit. Diners at Northern Cuisine in Champaign. New York University enrolls more Chinese students than any other school in the US, but the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is in a virtual tie for second place with the University of Southern California. ANJALI PINTO/NYT As more Asian businesses crowd in, the struggle for survival becomes increasingly Darwinian. Restaurants along Green Street can come and go in the span of a year. Now, their owners are anticipating fewer students from other countries, especially China, said Tim Chao, who owns three cafes with his wife, Shi. Until recently, Chao said, many restaurateurs aimed their offerings squarely at those students. If significant numbers of them aren't allowed into the United States, or decide to study in a country that feels more welcoming, 'the general consensus is that they'll need to change the flavors, change the menu and how they present themselves,' he said. For instance, the noodle shop that sells Changsha stinky tofu just added grilled meat skewers and other, more entry-level items to its late-night menu. 'Everyone is buckled up right now,' Chao said. Many long-term residents are hoping that their favorite restaurants stick around and stay interesting. 'This cultural richness enhances us all,' said Leslie Cooperband, a retired cheesemaker who lives in Champaign, after we shared some very good three-cup chicken at Golden Harbor, a Taiwanese and Chinese landmark so celebrated that an indie-rock band wrote a song about it. Advertisement 'It's like, wow, look at what we have here in this town of 100,000 people,' she said. 'And we're all better for it.' This article originally appeared in .
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
What does climate change mean for agriculture? Less food, and more emissions
New research spotlights the challenge of growing food on a warming planet. Two recent studies — one historical and the other forward-looking — examine how rising temperatures have made and could continue to make agricultural production less efficient, fundamentally reshaping the global food system as producers try to adapt to hotter growing seasons. The findings illuminate the bind that farmers and consumers find themselves in. Agricultural production is a driver of climate change; it's estimated to be responsible for somewhere between a quarter and a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. But it is also hampered by the changes in weather patterns associated with climate change. While producers struggle to harvest the same amounts of food in the face of droughts, heat waves, and hurricanes, shoppers are more likely to face climbing food prices. The forward-looking study, published June 18 in Nature, analyzes the impact of warming temperatures on the caloric output of agricultural production. Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability found that for every additional degree Celsius of warming above the 2000-2010 average, the global food system will produce roughly 120 fewer calories per person per day. In a scenario where the Earth experiences 3 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century, that's the equivalent of everyone on the planet missing out on breakfast, said Andrew Hultgren, lead author of the study. Hultgren and his colleagues compiled a massive dataset on the production of six staple crops in more than 12,000 regions spread out over 54 countries. They then modeled how different warming scenarios might impact crop production; they also factored in how farmers around the world are adapting to higher temperatures. What they found is that, even with adaptation, global warming is associated with an 'almost a linear decline in caloric output,' said Hultgren, who is also an assistant professor of agricultural and consumer economics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Measuring agricultural adaptation and its impact on output was important, said Hultgren, because research often assumes that farmers either adapt perfectly to global warming or not at all. The reality is that adapting to any growing season challenges comes at some cost, and farmers are constantly weighing the business benefits of implementing new techniques. For example, one tool that corn farmers in the U.S. Midwest have to prevent hot days from thwarting their harvest is planting crop varietals that mature relatively quickly. 'Corn is very sensitive to extreme heat,' said Hultgren, 'so one very hot day can actually be bad for your entire growing season yield.' But fast-maturing varietals also often produce lower yields overall, meaning these farmers likely can't sell as much corn as they would have under cooler weather conditions, said Hultgren. 'So there's literally a cost of avoiding that extreme heat,' he said. A drop in the global supply of crops will also lead to an uptick in food prices. But Hultgren noted that the impacts of reduced agricultural output won't be evenly distributed. In wealthier countries such as the U.S., for example, those who can afford higher food prices will likely eat the cost. In poorer countries, these shifts could worsen food insecurity. Additionally, rising temperatures will impact producers unevenly; the study estimated that in a high-warming climate scenario, corn farmers in the U.S. will experience 40 to 50 percent losses in yield by the end of the century. Based on these projections, 'you wonder if the Corn Belt continues to be the Corn Belt,' said Hultgren. Meanwhile, other regional producers — like rice farmers in South and Southeast Asia — will see yields grow in the same time frame. 'There are absolutely regional winners and losers in this global aggregate,' he said. The historical study, published June 20 in Nature Geosciences, looks at one of the ways agricultural production contributes to global warming: land clearing. When farmers want to cultivate new cropland, they often start by removing the plants that are already growing there, whether that's grass, shrubs, or trees. When land clearing happens in carbon-rich regions in the Global South, like the Amazon rainforest, it increases deforestation and carbon emissions, said Jessica Till, the study's co-lead author. 'Deforestation in tropical areas is one of the most urgent issues and biggest areas of concern,' said Till, a research scientist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. (Till and Hultgren were not involved in each other's studies.) 'The more land you clear, the more forest you remove to create cropland, that's going to have a negative effect on the climate.' Till and the other study authors examined this feedback loop between agriculture and the environment: When crop production becomes less efficient due to extreme weather and heat, farmers must acquire and clear more land to boost production. That expansion in croplands then in turn results in higher greenhouse gas emissions, which exacerbates warming and makes crop production even less efficient. They found that, even with improvements in agricultural productivity (due to technological improvements like new seed varieties and precision fertilizer application), climate change was responsible for 88 million hectares, or 217 million acres, in cropland expansion globally — an area roughly twice the size of California — between 1992 and 2020. They also determined that this expansion was led by major agricultural producers, including the United States, India, China, Russia, and Brazil. Unsurprisingly, these countries were also the top five highest emitters of greenhouse gas emissions stemming from climate-driven expansions in cropland. Both Till and Hultgren noted that these shifts can also influence global trade. When certain regions see a decline in agricultural productivity, said Till, other regions will gain a competitive advantage in the international market for agricultural commodities. Erwan Monier, co-director of the Climate Adaptation Research Center at the University of California Davis, said he was not surprised by either studies' findings, and said they contribute to the growing body of research on climate impacts on agriculture. But he added that both come with caveats. Monier noted that the Nature study on caloric output fails to consider possible future advances in technologies like genetic editing that could make crops much more resilient to climate change. He said the paper demonstrates that 'in order to really limit the impact of climate on our ability to grow food, we're going to need a scale of innovation and adaptation that is really substantial, and that's going to be a real challenge.' Referring to the Nature Geosciences paper on the feedback loop between agriculture and climate, Monier said that it similarly does not take into account how farmer behavior might change in response to global warming. 'The fact is we have an ability to change what grows where,' said Monier. In the U.S., for example, where corn and soy production reign, farmers could choose to plant different crops if they see yields fall consistently. These growers will not 'continue growing corn with very low yields and invest more capital and land with very, very low returns,' said Monier. 'Farmers are going to move away to something that actually is more valuable and grows well' — and that, in turn, could reduce the need to clear more land. Monier acknowledged that the latter study might come across as quite pessimistic. But, he said, it underscores the importance of having difficult conversations now about how to grow enough food to feed the world's population as temperatures climb. In order to avoid serious losses in agricultural production, he said, climate researchers and institutions must work hand-in-hand with farmers, helping them understand the risks of global warming and seek out new ways of adapting. This work should be 'bottom up,' said Monier, rather than 'top down.' 'We need to engage the people who are going to be actually growing the food.' He added that this will involve work that extends beyond the academic sphere. 'I don't know if publishing in Nature and Nature Geoscience is the way to really drive the bottom-up adaptation at the scale that is necessary.' This story was originally published by Grist with the headline What does climate change mean for agriculture? Less food, and more emissions on Jun 30, 2025.
Miami Herald
24-06-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Illinois must build 227,000 units in 5 years to keep up with housing demand, report finds
Illinois has a shortage of about 142,000 housing units and must build 227,000 in the next five years to keep pace with demand, a number that would require recent annual production rates to double, according to a new economic study. The joint study published Tuesday by the Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found that although the rental and for-sale housing markets in Chicago and Illinois as a whole remain more affordable than many coastal cities, such as New York and Los Angeles, and some other states, Illinois still faces a severe housing shortage that is escalating affordability challenges. National housing shortage estimates are wide-ranging, with Freddie Mac citing 3.7 million and the National Association of Realtors reporting 5.5 million. "Prosperity and economic growth require people not only working, but then investing in their communities," said report co-author Robert Bruno, a professor of labor and employment relations at the U. of I. and director of the Project for Middle Class Renewal. "A key asset is having a place to live. And there are multiple ways that you can provide that housing … and Illinois could be doing a better job." The researchers, who analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data, found that housing demand in Illinois has been fueled by numerous factors, including rising incomes, robust employment and population growth and higher rates of homeownership compared to the national average. Meanwhile, in the past five years, the report found that new home listings dropped by 64%, new housing construction permits fell by an average of 13% and the state's vacancy rate for both rental and owner-occupied units reached historic lows. Home values have gone up 37% in the state since 2019, the report found, with insurance and property taxes also rising. Rent prices in Chicago show no signs of easing either. In May, rents in Chicago increased 2% compared with 0.4% nationally, which was the second-fastest month-over-month rent growth of the nation's largest 100 cities, according to Apartment List. The city's year-over-year rent growth stands at 5%, landing it in fourth place for fastest growth among the nation's 100 largest cities. The real estate market for for-sale homes has been experiencing significant housing inventory challenges in recent years because of higher mortgage rates, keeping prices elevated and would-be homebuyers renting for longer. The report also found that investors have been icing out everyday homebuyers by snatching up homes with all-cash offers in the Chicago area, with the investor-owned share of the housing market increasing from 8% in 2010 to 14% in 2023. Red tape, such as zoning laws and minimum parking requirements, have limited new construction as well. While Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker have touted housing availability and affordability as key concerns and priorities of their administrations, the task to overcome the city and state housing shortages has become a heftier one. Land can be scarce; bureaucratic red tape that impedes construction can be abundant; building material costs are high and potentially are getting higher with President Donald Trump's constantly evolving trade wars; and local, state and federal funds available to subsidize the burgeoning development costs are getting more limited in some instances because of fiscal challenges, issues that are exacerbated by a federal government that is eager to use far-reaching powers to control state and institutional purse strings and is focused on axing spending. The report comes as Johnson has made significant investments in an effort to mitigate the shortage, while the state recently reduced the amount of budgetary funds that go toward housing for the 2026 fiscal year beginning July 1 by more than $26 million, a roughly 9% decrease. The reduction in funds hit as area housing groups who rely on city, state and federal dollars are already struggling to provide subsidized housing to some of the lowest income residents in the state as they are facing multimillion-dollar budget shortfalls. About a year ago, Johnson launched the Cut the Tape initiative which aims to reduce the bureaucratic red tape to speed up housing development and, in turn, reduce costs; affordable housing developers say they are still awaiting tangible changes resulting from this initiative. The Johnson administration recently created two new programs to build "green social housing" and "missing middle" housing as well. The former seeks to create mixed-income rental buildings that are built to certain energy efficiency and decarbonization standards and in which at least 30% of the units are affordable. The city would own a majority stake in the buildings, a first-of-its-kind role for Chicago. The latter allows investors to buy city-owned lots for $1 each and receive up to $150,000 per unit to subsidize construction costs. The goal of the missing middle program is to build low-cost, for-sale homes on the South and West sides, potentially reversing a decades-long population decline in disinvested communities. Johnson has said one of his top goals as mayor is to make Chicago the "safest, most affordable city in America," and has cited an uptick in tourism, downtown hotel occupancy and annual census numbers as proof of results. The green social housing program is expected to be seeded with $135 million and the missing middle program comes with $75 million, with the dollars coming from the city's $1.25 billion housing and economic development bond. "It is good to have the commitment, great to have the dollars invested," Bruno told the Tribune, "but then what knot do you have to untie … so that you can start really building more affordable housing?" An ordinance allowing for more accessory dwelling units, which are independent residential units on the same lot as a home, has stalled for over a year, with aldermen in the bungalow belts resisting because they are worried about density in their single-family home neighborhoods. How can Chicago and Illinois lawmakers address the housing shortage and affordability challenges? The authors suggest a variety of solutions, some of which Chicago officials and other state leaders are already working on, including easing zoning restrictions, quickening permitting processes, offering tax incentives to convert commercial buildings to residential units and increasing surtaxes on short-term rentals such as Airbnb. Aldermen recently took a step toward giving themselves the power to ban Airbnb and other short-term rentals from opening in their wards, a move that could potentially lead to an increase in housing supply. "While policymakers in Illinois cannot dictate national mortgage rates or tariffs on imported lumber and steel, they can take action to reduce barriers for prospective buyers, renters and developers," said report co-author Frank Manzo, an economist at the Illinois Economic Policy Institute, a La Grange-based nonpartisan research organization. "And the data certainly argues in favor of policy changes that boost supply in order to improve affordability." (Chicago Tribune's Alice Yin and Jake Sheridan contributed.) Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Chicago Tribune
24-06-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Illinois must build 227,000 units in 5 years to keep up with housing demand, report finds
Illinois has a shortage of about 142,000 housing units and must build 227,000 in the next five years to keep pace with demand, a number that would require recent annual production rates to double, according to a new economic study. The joint study published Tuesday by the Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found that although the rental and for-sale housing markets in Chicago and Illinois as a whole remain more affordable than many coastal cities, such as New York and Los Angeles, and some other states, Illinois still faces a severe housing shortage that is escalating affordability challenges. National housing shortage estimates are wide-ranging, with Freddie Mac citing 3.7 million and the National Association of Realtors citing 5.5 million. 'Prosperity and economic growth require people not only working, but then investing in their communities,' said report co-author Robert Bruno, a professor of labor and employment relations at the U. of I. and director of the Project for Middle Class Renewal. 'A key asset is having a place to live. And there are multiple ways that you can provide that housing … and Illinois could be doing a better job.' The researchers, who analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data, found that housing demand in Illinois has been fueled by numerous factors, including rising incomes, robust employment and population growth and higher rates of homeownership compared to the national average. Meanwhile, in the past five years, the report found that new home listings dropped by 64%, new housing construction permits fell by an average of 13% and the state's vacancy rate for both rental and owner-occupied units reached historic lows. Home values have gone up 37% in the state since 2019, the report found, with insurance and property taxes also rising. Rent prices in Chicago show no signs of easing either. In May, rents in Chicago increased 2% compared with 0.4% nationally, which was the second-fastest month-over-month rent growth of the nation's largest 100 cities, according to Apartment List. The city's year-over-year rent growth stands at 5%, landing it in fourth place for fastest growth among the nation's 100 largest cities. The real estate market for for-sale homes has been experiencing significant housing inventory challenges in recent years because of higher mortgage rates, keeping prices elevated and would-be homebuyers renting for longer. The report also found that investors have been icing out everyday homebuyers by snatching up homes with all-cash offers in the Chicago area, with the investor-owned share of the housing market increasing from 8% in 2010 to 14% in 2023. Red tape, such as zoning laws and minimum parking requirements, have limited new construction as well. While Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker have touted housing availability and affordability as key concerns and priorities of their administrations, the task to overcome the city and state housing shortages has become a heftier one. Land can be scarce; bureaucratic red tape that impedes construction can be abundant; building material costs are high and potentially are getting higher with President Donald Trump's constantly evolving trade wars; and local, state and federal funds available to subsidize the burgeoning development costs are getting more limited in some instances because of fiscal challenges, issues that are exacerbated by a federal government that is eager to use far-reaching powers to control state and institutional purse strings and is focused on axing spending. The report comes as Johnson has made significant investments in an effort to mitigate the shortage, while the state recently reduced the amount of budgetary funds that go toward housing for the 2026 fiscal year beginning July 1 by more than $26 million, a roughly 9% decrease. The reduction in funds hit as area housing groups who rely on city, state and federal dollars are already struggling to provide subsidized housing to some of the lowest income residents in the state as they are facing multimillion-dollar budget shortfalls. About a year ago, Johnson launched the Cut the Tape initiative which aims to reduce the bureaucratic red tape to speed up housing development and, in turn, reduce costs; affordable housing developers say they are still awaiting tangible changes resulting from this initiative. The Johnson administration recently created two new programs to build 'green social housing' and 'missing middle' housing as well. The former seeks to create mixed-income rental buildings that are built to certain energy efficiency and decarbonization standards and in which at least 30% of the units are affordable. The city would own a majority stake in the buildings, a first-of-its-kind role for Chicago. The latter allows investors to buy city-owned lots for $1 each and receive up to $150,000 per unit to subsidize construction costs. The goal of the missing middle program is to build low-cost, for-sale homes on the South and West sides, potentially reversing a decades-long population decline in disinvested communities. Johnson has said one of his top goals as mayor is to make Chicago the 'safest, most affordable city in America,' and has cited an uptick in tourism, downtown hotel occupancy and annual census numbers as proof of results. The green social housing program is expected to be seeded with $135 million and the missing middle program comes with $75 million, with the dollars coming from the city's $1.25 billion housing and economic development bond. 'It is good to have the commitment, great to have the dollars invested,' Bruno told the Tribune, 'but then what knot do you have to untie … so that you can start really building more affordable housing?' An ordinance allowing for more accessory dwelling units, which are independent residential units on the same lot as a home, has stalled for over a year, with aldermen in the bungalow belts resisting because they are worried about density in their single-family home neighborhoods. How can Chicago and Illinois lawmakers address the housing shortage and affordability challenges? The authors suggest a variety of solutions, some of which Chicago officials and other state leaders are already working on, including easing zoning restrictions, quickening permitting processes, offering tax incentives to convert commercial buildings to residential units and increasing surtaxes on short-term rentals such as Airbnb. Aldermen recently took a step toward giving themselves the power to ban Airbnb and other short-term rentals from opening in their wards, a move that could potentially lead to an increase in housing supply. 'While policymakers in Illinois cannot dictate national mortgage rates or tariffs on imported lumber and steel, they can take action to reduce barriers for prospective buyers, renters and developers,' said report co-author Frank Manzo, an economist at the Illinois Economic Policy Institute, a La Grange-based nonpartisan research organization. 'And the data certainly argues in favor of policy changes that boost supply in order to improve affordability.' ekane@
USA Today
20-06-2025
- Science
- USA Today
Climate change threatens world food supply. How bad could it be in the U.S.?
It's especially worrisome in the United States, where top crop production could drop by as much as 50% by 2100. The planet's food system faces growing risks from climate change, a new study says. It's especially worrisome in the United States, where top crop production could drop by as much as 50% by 2100. The study, published June 18, assessed six staple crops – maize (corn), soybeans, rice, wheat, cassava and sorghum – and found that only rice might avoid substantial losses from rising temperatures. 'If the climate warms by 3 degrees, that's basically like everyone on the planet giving up breakfast," study co-author Solomon Hsiang of Stanford University said in a statement. Will there still be a Corn Belt? The projected losses for U.S. agriculture are especially steep, according to the study. 'Places in the Midwest that are really well suited for present-day corn and soybean production just get hammered under a high warming future,' said lead study author Andrew Hultgren of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. 'You do start to wonder if the Corn Belt is going to be the Corn Belt in the future.' Scientists estimated that for every 1.8-degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature above pre-industrial levels, production will decline by 120 calories per person per day, the equivalent of 4.4% of today's daily consumption. That will push up prices and make it harder for people to access food, Hsiang told CNN. Wheat, soy and corn most affected Wheat and corn will be among the crops most at risk, the study found. The study suggested that under a high-emissions scenario, by the end of the century, maize production could decline by up to 40% in the United States, Eastern China, Central Asia, Southern Africa and the Middle East. Wheat loses could range from 15% to 25% in Europe, Africa and South America and 30% to 40% in China, Russia, the United States and Canada. 'This is basically like sending our agricultural profits overseas," Hsiang said in a statement from Stanford. "We will be sending benefits to producers in Canada, Russia, China. Those are the winners, and we in the U.S. are the losers. The longer we wait to reduce emissions, the more money we lose.' Data center: Hot, hotter, hottest: How much will climate change warm your county? Steepest losses at the extremes The steepest losses occur at the extremes of the agricultural economy, according to a statement from Stanford University. That includes modern breadbaskets that now enjoy some of the world's best growing conditions, such as the United States, and subsistence farming communities that rely on small harvests of cassava. In terms of food production capacity from staple crops, the analysis found yield losses may average 41% in the wealthiest regions and 28% in the lowest-income regions by 2100. In the study, scientists concluded further adaptation and the expansion of cropland may be needed to ensure food security and limit the effects of climate change. A favorable climate, Hsiang said, is a big part of what keeps farmland productive across generations. 'Farmers know how to maintain the soil, invest in infrastructure, repair the barn,' Hsiang said. 'But if you're letting the climate depreciate, the rest of it is a waste. The land you leave to your kids will be good for something, but not for farming.' The study was published in the peer-reviewed British journal Nature.
