Food Supply in Texas Threatened by Climate Change

Food Supply in Texas Threatened by Climate Change

Food supply in Texas is threatened by climate change-enhanced droughts that devastate crops, according to the Texas Department of Agriculture.

Producing a steady food supply in Texas relies on Mother Nature producing a steady supply of precipitation. Crops takes a lot of water to grow successfully and Texas has been a little (and by a little we mean a LOT) dry lately. 2022 was one of the state’s driest years and leading to failed crops or low crop yields along with culled cattle herds.

While food insecurity across before the pandemic affected approximately 11 percent of people across the US, it affected 14 percent of Texans. Previous studies have linked it to geographic food access as well as factors such as race, ethnicity, income and “urbanicity”, and those percentages have likely risen since the pandemic.

Now, a new Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) report has linked climate change with food insecurity and identified it as a potential threat to the state’s food supply. The study was conducted by the TDA and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, and notes that “‘climate instability’ is strongly associated with soil loss, water quality, droughts, fires, floods and other environmental disasters,” all of which interrupt food supply. Note that no link to the report was available and a search for the report on the TDA site turned up no results.

[Texas Tribune]

Find out more about the link between climate change and water resources here.