Demand for quality beans is growing around the globe, but drought — possibly the result of climate change — is limiting supply.
Extreme weather events attributable to climate change have contributed to crop failures around the globe by drought, flood, and disruption of traditional growing seasons.
They have a major influence on weather around the globe, bringing droughts to normally damp places, such as parts of Australia, and floods to normally drier regions, such as in South America.
Among the findings this year, climate modelers linked a now fading, years-long, globe-girdling drought to unusually warm waters in the western Pacific and Indian oceans (ScienceNOW, 10 October).
Scientists believe the higher temperatures are likely a sign of an impending El Niño, a periodic warming of Pacific Ocean waters which brings heavy rainfall but could also be beneficial to parts of the globe experiencing droughts.
Many highly populated coastal regions around the globe suffer from severe drought conditions.
It is estimated that approximately 60% of common bean production around the globe is affected by drought in any given year, including large areas of Latin America and Africa (Thung and Rao 1999).
Across vast swaths of the globe, however, severe, persistent droughts lasted not just for years but for generations.
The past 12 months have seen a range of extreme weather not just in this country, which experienced its second-wettest summer on record, but around the globe, such as the droughts in Russia and the US Midwest that effectively devastated these regions' wheat yields.
Considerable breeding efforts have been made across the globe to overcome the abiotic (drought, salinity, heat) and biotic (Helicoverpa, Fusarium wilt, Ascochyta blight) production constraints in chickpea.
