Worries about how climate change may affect food supplies

SHOTLIST FILE: Nan Hua Village, Guizhou Province - 17 September 2006 1. Wide pan of villagers harvesting rice 2. Man threshing rice by hand in traditional manner 3. Close-up of rice falling into wooden bin 4. High angle of people harvesting rice Beijing - 15 October 2008 5. Wide pullout of the main gate of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences 6. Wide interior of agricultural experts in news conference 7. Cutaway of media 8. SOUNDBITE: (Mandarin) Professor Lin Erda, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences: "According to our climate models and impact models the conclusions are indicating that, after 2030, climate change will have more and more serious negative effects. In some areas that production of grain will decrease by 14 percent to - 23 percent. Of course, this is just showing the impact of climate change." FILE: Anshun, Guizhou Province - 15 September 2006 9. Wide of women harvesting rice in field 10. Close up women threshing rice in traditional manner 11. Wide of power lines with cut rice stalks in foreground Beijing - 15 October 2008 12. SOUNDBITE: (Mandarin) Professor Lin Erda, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences: "I believe that the prices we've seen here have provided a bit of a wake up call for the global community, that grain production is an important problem. We cannot be complacent. To guarantee grain production we need to fight climate change, financial crisis and energy shortages, etc." FILE: Feng Ning County, Hebei Province - 4 April 2007 13. Farmer with donkey preparing field for planting corn 14. Plough churning up field STORYLINE: With over 21 percent of the world's population depending on each harvest, Chinese Agricultural Scientists and Greenpeace announced on Wednesday that if climate change continues at it's current pace, Chinese food production will not even be enough to feed the Chinese population. China is 26 percent desert and mountain and most of the grain and rice comes from the fertile areas of Central and Southern China. Although it currently manages to feed nearly a quarter of the world's people, the nation does so with only nine percent of the world's arable land. Now the country is being warned that any change - especially one which raises temperatures and increases desertification - is a cause for concern. Currently, up to 50 (m) million hectares of farmland are threatened by climatic disasters each year. Scientists are seeing possible increases of 2.5 - 3 degrees (Celsius) in their near term (between 20 - 50 years) environmental simulations. According to scientists, each rise in temperature of one degree (Celsius) could mean as much as a 10 percent drop in the nation's rice harvest. The lead author of the report, Professor Lin Erda, a think tank member on the issue of climate change, believes that this could have an increasingly negative impact. If no effective measures are taken Lin says that there could be as much as a 23 percent decrease in yield by 2030 from the total food production of 500 (m) million tons in 2000. Lin says that recent food price increases have been a wake up call and natural disasters have shown that complacency isn't an option. Experts hope that less reliance on chemical fertiliser and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions can help avoid the worst case scenarios. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/5322641f1b57cc8ffc877028d6c7c2a9 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork