The extent of suitable grazing lands worldwide is at risk of shrinking by 36 to 50 per cent by 2100 as a result of climate change. The areas most affected are regions where herders already struggle with low incomes, hunger, gender inequality and political instability. This is the conclusion of global modelling analyses published on 9 February by climate researchers and ecologists from Potsdam, Beijing, Barcelona, Groningen and elsewhere in the American journal PNAS – notably in the very year that the United Nations has declared the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists.
Grazing is an important food production system worldwide, providing livelihoods for people in a wide range of geographical and socioeconomic circumstances. The researchers, including agricultural scientist Prajal Pradhan of the University of Groningen, assessed how changes in temperature, precipitation, humidity and wind speed resulting from climate change affect the grazing of grasslands across six continents: North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania. They calculate that the loss of grazing land could harm 110 to 140 million livestock farmers and 1.4 to 1.6 billion head of livestock. Of this population, nearly 40 per cent currently live in countries experiencing ‘serious hunger’, such as Afghanistan, Kenya and Ethiopia, and around 12 per cent in countries with ‘(extremely) alarming hunger’, such as Somalia, Yemen, Chad and South Sudan.