In the previous weeks, Ithaca saw temperatures drop 40 degrees over the course of just a few days. The juxtaposition was jarring, and it did not ease my pre-existing anxiety regarding the uptick in severe weather and climate change. Surrounded by farmland in upstate New York, I find myself wondering how modern agriculture’s vulnerability to climate change is going to impact global food supplies.
A lot of brainpower has been dedicated to understanding the future impact of climate change on “stable” crops, such as maize, soybean, and wheat, but what about beer? After all, it’s the most popular alcoholic beverage in the world, and according to a Popular Science article, it’s “the glue that binds societies together”.
So how vulnerable is our stable supply of beer in the midst of global warming?
To answer that question, we begin with barley; beer’s main ingredient. It’s been shown that extreme weather, defined as concurrent drought and heatwaves in this case, severely impacts barley yields, but how does that translate to beer consumption and price?
Before we answer that, it’s important to note that only 17% of global barley production is used for beer. However, this breakdown is not uniform across all regions. For example, in Brazil, nearly 90% is used for beer, whereas in Australia, it’s only a mere 9%. What are we doing with that remaining 83%? A lot of it is used as animal feed, which is significant because this use of barley is viewed as a food commodity, whereas beer is a luxury item. This matters because, during extreme weather years, barley for livestock could be prioritized over barley for beer. Even though a small percentage of the whole, barley that is further processed into malt is what we call “value-added” and not insignificant for farmers. Barley that is deemed good malting quality grade is prized by growers since it can sell for more than 10 times the value of feed barley, the latter of which promises an almost negligible return on investment.
So what does this mean in terms of global supplies, consumption, and cost?
This question brings us to Peking University, where researchers Wei Xie and Tariq Ali built a model looking into the relationship between severe weather and just that.
Specifically, they combined two models: (1) a process-crop model that investigated the impacts of extreme events on barley yield, and (2) a global economic model that assessed the effects of barley yields on the supply and price of beer.
From this model, they generated several future scenarios containing increasingly more severe and frequent extreme weather events, and found that, overall increased droughts and heat will disturb global beer consumption and increase prices.
Under the most severe model, which predicted 139 severe weather events over 90 years, they reported beer consumption decreasing by 16% globally. That’s roughly the amount of beer consumed in the United States annually, which in 2018, was around 6 billion gallons! In terms of cost, they reported the average price of beer doubling under these conditions.
Even in the least severe scenario, one where there were only 17 severe weather events, they still reported a 4% decrease in beer consumption and a 15% increase in price.
These net changes are not ubiquitous across regions. Losses in barley yield were most pronounced in tropical areas such as Central and South America, and Central Africa. However, in some places, like the northern US and northwest Asia, the model predicted slight increases in barley yields. While a relief for barley suppliers in upstate New York, these slight increases would not compensate for the global losses.
Interestingly, regions with the greatest yield losses (i.e. Central Africa and Central/South America) were not necessarily where we saw the highest price surges. Surges in prices were associated with “relatively affluent and historically beer-loving countries”, like Ireland, where the cost of a single bottle of beer was predicted to increase by around $5 under the most severe scenario. In terms of the cost of a 6-pack, this is predicted to experience a $20 price hike, nearly a 200% increase! Unsurprisingly, these extreme price hikes are tied to regions where consumers are willing and able to pay more for beer rather than consume less.
The impacts of climate change are diverse and not fully known, but it’s apparent that severe climate events can be detrimental to barley supplies, and consequently can drive up costs triggering a decrease in beer consumption on a global scale. Though not discussed here, the impact of weather events and changing climate on the malting quality of barley may also experience significant changes in the coming years. The fact that beer is considered a luxury item, and therefore has a lower priority compared to other barley-products suggests that the disruption in beer supplies could be even more severe compared to other barley products, such as animal feed. Furthermore, these changes in supply, consumption, and cost, despite being influenced by climate change, are impacted by other factors, such as regional culture and economic status.
Knowing this, the next question would be how will beer shortages impact our quality of life? Could the implications be greater than just an increased bar tab?
References
- Schwartz, Alex. “Archaeologists Unearth More Evidence That When a Civilization Drinks Together, It Stays Together.” Popular Science, Popular Science, 22 Apr. 2019, www.popsci.com/beer-ancient-civilization-wari-empire-sustainability/.
- Xie, W., Xiong, W., Pan, J., Ali, T., Cui, Q., Guan, D., … Davis, S. J. (2018). Decreases in global beer supply due to extreme drought and heat. Nature Plants, 4(11), 964–973. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-018-0263-1
- Stebbins, S. (2019, September 14). How much beer does your state drink? In the thirstiest, about 40 gallons a year per person. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/09/14/how-much-beer-did-the-average-person-drink-in-every-state/40109241/