Obama Sees New Front in Climate Change Battle: Agriculture

Former President Barack Obama gave his first speech outside the United States since leaving office at the Seeds & Chips conference, an annual gathering of policy makers, investors and technology entrepreneurs focused on innovations to improve the food chain. His brief speech was devoted to agriculture’s role in climate change, noting that after energy, agriculture is the second-largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Now, he said, those emissions are starting to take their toll on food production itself. “Our changing climate is already making it more difficult to produce food,” he said. “We’ve already seen shrinking yields and rising food prices.”He said the costs would be borne most by the poor, noting that many of the refugees seeking sanctuary in Europe are driven not by conflict but by famine.