Irish favourites like popcorn, corn on the cob and whiskey could soon fall victim to climate crisis' stresses.
That’s because new research from NASA has found rising greenhouse gas emissions may impact maize and wheat production as early as 2030.
And with Ireland importing up to 80 per cent of what we eat aside from meat and dairy, it could have major effects on food security.
Read more: How climate crisis could make Ireland colder and heighten storm surge risk
NASA’s projections suggest global maize (corn) yields could drop as much as 24 per cent later this century.
Wheat production is expected to rise by 17 per cent, but they also found rising temperatures and resulting faster growth rates could impact its nutritional value with any yield gains expected to level off by 2050.
The report’s lead author Jonas Jägermeyr, a crop modeler and climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and The Earth Institute at Columbia University, said: "We did not expect to see such a fundamental shift, as compared to crop yield projections from the previous generation of climate and crop models conducted in 2014.
"The projected maize response was surprisingly large and negative.
"A 20 per cent decrease from current production levels could have severe implications worldwide.
"Even under optimistic climate change scenarios, where societies enact ambitious efforts to limit global temperature rise, global agriculture is facing a new climate reality," he added.
"And with the interconnectedness of the global food system, impacts in even one region’s breadbasket will be felt worldwide."
The team behind the research used advanced climate and agricultural models to predict how high emissions might hit the world’s food.
Scientists found the change in yields is due to projected increases in temperature, shifts in rainfall patterns and elevated surface carbon dioxide concentrations from human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. And that these changes would make it more difficult to grow maize in parts of North America, South America, West Africa, Central Europe, India, China, but could expand wheat’s growing range and accelerate crop maturity.
Alex Ruane, co-director of the GISS Climate Impacts Group and a co-author of the study, added: "You can think of plants as collecting sunlight over the course of the growing season.
"They’re collecting that energy and then putting it into the plant and the grain.
"So, if you rush through your growth stages, by the end of the season, you just haven’t collected as much energy.
"By growing faster, your yield actually goes down."
But how will this impact Ireland?
Ireland imports large amounts of maize, wheat, rice and soybeans from around the world to feed the population, livestock and for use in distilling drinks.
According to the Central Statistics Office, maize imports totalled some 1,581,953 tonnes in 2022 - with Canada and Brazil providing over half a million tonnes each.
We also imported some 511,467 tonnes of wheat, 35,498 tonnes of rice and 9,196 tonnes of soya beans.
While we do produce wheat, oats, barley, beans, peas and falling amounts of potatoes - we rely heavily on imports and calls are rising for the State to become much more self-sufficient so we’re less reliant on imported crops.
Stop Climate Chaos Coordinator Sadhbh O’Neill told us: "Current policies in support of the tillage sector are not aligned with the scientific advice that we need to be becoming more resilient and diversifying our tillage sector and the whole agricultural sector so that we can look to become more self sufficient in food.
"The areas we are relying on food imports from, Spain and more Mediterranean areas, are the first countries in Europe that are experiencing severe droughts associated with climate change.
"That’s going to have a knock-on effect not just on the availability of produce but the cost of it.
"Food that was cheap and affordable might not be available - or available at much higher prices than we are used to and that’s just in the near term.
"In the longer term, who knows? The impact on agricultural production could be much more severe and that severity could happen much sooner depending on how things unfold.
"But the prognosis is really bad... we are looking towards a much more uncertain future."
A spokesperson for the Irish Farmers Association said they attended the "recently established Tillage Vision Group [May 11] which is looking at ways to increase the national tillage area to 400,000 hectares by 2030.
"One of the aims of this group is to increase the level of sufficiency in grain and protein production to help reduce the reliance on feed imports."
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