Recently The Lancet and University College London published a commission report on the effects of global climate changes and the threat to global health. The resulting report is a call to action that rings loud and clear.

There are several issues discussed that are important and interesting, however the discussion of food production and food security is particularly interesting to me.  Here is an excerpt:

“Another study suggests that half of the world’s population could face severe food shortages by the end of the century because rising temperatures take their toll on farmers’ crops. Harvests of staple food crops, such as rice and maize, could fall between 20% and 40% as a result of increased temperatures during the growing season in tropical and subtropical regions.”

The report does an excellent job (almost too good) of emphasizing how real and immediate this problem is for the globe.  In the recommendations, the authors of the report stress the need for community and country level empowerment for the developing world into taking action.

In reading this report, I was reminded of the DatAgro project that our partners are implementing in Chile. The good news is that we know that access to information and training is proven to help farmers increase food production. We started by doing extensive on-the-ground work with a pilot group of farmers in order to define the types of content most critical to them. DataDyne.org then developed a mobile information platform built on Ruby on Rails that delivers the information – such as farming innovations, market prices, and urgent warnings that can save entire harvests – via SMS messages. Using inexpensive cell phones and the MIP platform, farmers in Chile can access information that will help them increase their yield.