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Ozone harms East Asian crops, costing $63 billion a year, scientists say

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Gloria Dickie, Reuters

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img alt="Farmers in Barangay Baculud in Ilagan city, Isabela till and plant vegetables that grow around a month for a quicker harvest on November 21, 2020, after flooding brought by typhoon Ulysses inundated the area and destroyed growing crops. Mark Demayo, ABS-CBN News/file" src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2021/news/01/27/20201121-farmers-isabela-md-20_1.jpg"/><figcaption>Farmers in Barangay Baculud in Ilagan city, Isabela till and plant vegetables that grow around a month for a quicker harvest on November 21, 2020, after flooding brought by typhoon Ulysses inundated the area and destroyed growing crops. <em>Mark Demayo, ABS-CBN News/file</em></figcaption></figure></div><p>Fossil fuel emissions aren’t just driving climate change and worsening air quality, they’re also hurting crop yields enough to cause some $63 billion in annual losses in East Asia, scientists say.</p><p>With high levels of ozone pollution, China, South Korea and Japan are seeing diminished yields in wheat, rice, and maize, according to a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00422-6" target="_blank">study</a> published Monday in the journal Nature Food.</p><p>China alone is losing a third of its potential wheat production and nearly a quarter of rice yields as ozone disrupts plant growth. That has worrying implications beyond the region, with Asia providing the majority of the world’s rice supply.</p><p>“East Asia is one of the biggest bread baskets and rice bowls in the world,” said lead author Zhaozhong Feng, an environmental researcher at Nanjing University of Information Science &amp; Technology.</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/01/27/21/philippine-rice-output-hits-all-time-high-of-193-million-mt-in-2020">Philippine rice output hits all-time high of 19.3 million MT in 2020</a></li></ul><p>Asia is also a hotspot for ozone, formed when sunlight interacts with greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds that are released by the burning of fossil fuels.</p><p>In the stratosphere, a layer of ozone protects the planet from ultraviolet radiation. But closer to Earth’s surface, ozone can harm plants and animals, including humans.</p><p>Feng and his colleagues used ozone monitoring data to estimate the crop damage as costing roughly $63 billion. Previous research on the topic has used computer simulations to assess the economic impact of ozone pollution on crops.</p><p>Ozone “directly damages food security in China for all three crops,” Feng said.</p><p>This is a concern for China, which is already worried about its declining land quality. The country has to feed a fifth of the world’s population with only 7% of its farmland.</p><p>As industry, energy and urban expansion have competed for limited land resources, China lost some 6% of its arable land, or 7.5 million hectares, from 2009 to 2019, according to a state land survey published in August last year. While Beijing has since drawn a “red line” to protect existing agricultural land, experts still anticipate the total to fall further by 2030.</p><p>“In some parts of the world, ozone pollution is comparable to or even worse for crops than the other big stressors of heat, drought, and pests,” said Katrina Sharps, a spatial data analyst at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. In a 2018 <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcb.14157" target="_blank">study</a>, she and other researchers estimated global wheat yield losses from ozone pollution totalled $24.2 billion annually between 2010 and 2012.</p><p>“It’s an under-recognized problem,” Sharps said.</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/10/27/21/vegetables-pricier-than-pork-worry-chinese-consumers-as-costs-swell">Vegetables pricier than pork worry Chinese consumers as costs swell</a></li></ul><p>Ozone levels have declined in America and Europe over the last two decades, with the introduction of stricter air quality measures. But the pollutant is increasing in Asia.</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/06/15/21/mouse-plague-australia">‘Worst’ mouse plague devastates farms in latest disaster to hit Australia</a></li></ul><p>While the gases that contribute to ozone pollution are largely emitted from cities, the impact is worse in rural areas where ozone forms.</p><p>Scientists said the best way to bring down ozone levels is to curb the use of fossil fuels – the same action needed to bring down greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change.</p><p>Without stricter emissions controls in Asia, Sharps said, “things are going to get worse.” (Reporting by Gloria Dickie; Additional reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Katy Daigle and Toby Chopra)</p><div><strong>FROM THE ARCHIVES</strong></div><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" frameBorder="0" height="100%" id="ivsplayer01" scrolling="no" src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/html/iframe-src.html?iframeid=ivsplayer01&amp;key=e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603&amp;spid=3001339&amp;vid=1388323" width="100%"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more in <a href="//www.iwantv.com.ph/">iWantv</a> or <a href="//tfc.tv/">TFC.tv</a></div>

China alone is losing a third of its potential wheat production and nearly a quarter of rice yields as ozone disrupts plant growth.

Ozone harms East Asian crops, costing $63 billion a year, scientists say

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Ozone harms East Asian crops, costing $63 billion a year, scientists say

Gloria Dickie,

Reuters

Published Jan 18, 2022 06:42 AM PHT

Read More:

climate change

global warming

fossil fuel emissions

ozone pollution

air quality

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