A recent safefood report on climate change and food safety predicts that local ecosystem changes will result in changes in land use and, potentially, agricultural land abandonment in some places.
Climate Change Ireland: The potential impacts of climate change on food safety from an island of Ireland perspective provides the most comprehensive assessment yet of the potential impacts from an island of Ireland perspective, said Dr James McIntosh, a Toxicologist with safefood. He added that climate change could cause significant disruption to this economy.
The Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) conducted research for the report. It took into account the findings of a whole range of models for predicting climate fluctuations and for risk assessment of specific food safety hazards.
Climate change could cause major local upsets by affecting all aspects of the ecosystems in an area, says James. “Since all agricultural production is ultimately plant-based, it will be influenced by these changes.”
One of the report’s main concerns was the potential increase in pests and invasive species, and it recommended a stepping up of biosecurity.
“Biosecurity is any measure that is taken to prevent the introduction of diseases or disease-causing organisms,” says James. “Everyone along the food chain must play their part in making sure current and emerging threats to food safety are monitored and detected in time.”
Toxin accumulation in both plants and animals could also become a problem in aquaculture. “Researchers are developing systems that will permit continuous monitoring of the aquatic physical environment and the concentrations of phytoplankton species present,” he says.
This data will be combined with surveillance data on harmful phytoplankton blooms and enable the development of predictive models. Aquaculture managers can respond rapidly if the risk of toxin contamination of shellfish is high, thereby preventing contaminated product from entering the food chain.
Dr Jack Lennon from QUB worked on the report. He says scientists and policymakers must work together to identify and deal with potential problems in advance and avoid the need for much more expensive firefighting.
“There is an urgent need to establish a coherent body of expertise for evidence-based food security threat assessment, focusing on climate and environmental change both within and across political boundaries,” he said.
The full report is available online from safefood.eu/Publications/Research-Reports.
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