Abstract: The size of arable crop yields depends on many weather factors, such as precipitation and air temperature during the vegetation period. When studying the relation between yields and precipitation, not only the total amount of precipitation, but also the occurrence of long periods without precipitation must be taken into account. The paper [Bojar et al., 2014] demonstrated that barley yield significantly statistically depends on the length of the series of days without precipitation. This paper attempts to analyse the statistical data on daily precipitation totals recorded during the January – December periods in the years 1971 – 2013 at the weather station of the University of Science and Technology in Bydgoszcz, Faculty of Agriculture and Biotechnology, in the Research Centre located in an agricultural area in the Mochle township, situated 17 kilometres from Bydgoszcz. The primary statistical operation in the study is an attempt to estimate the Markov chain order. To this end, two criteria of chain order determination are applied: BIC (Bayesian information criterion, Schwarz 1978) and AIC (Akaike information criterion, Akaike 1974). Both are based on the log-likelihood functions for transition probability of the Markov chain constructed on certain data series. Statistical analysis of precipitation totals data leads to the conclusion that both AIC and BIC indicate the 2nd order for the studied Markov chain. The proposed method of estimating the variability of precipitation occurrence in the future will be utilised to improve region-related bio-physical and economical models, and to assess the risk of extreme events in the context of growing climate hazards. It will serve as basis for a search in agriculture for solutions mitigating those hazards.

Abstract: Climate change and socioeconomic developments will have a decisive impact on people exposed to hunger. This study analyses climate change impacts on agriculture and potential implications for the occurrence of hunger under different socioeconomic scenarios for 2030, focusing on the world regions most affected by poverty today: the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. We use a spatially explicit, agroeconomic land-use model to assess agricultural vulnerability to climate change. The aims of our study are to provide spatially explicit projections of climate change impacts on Costs of Food, and to combine them with spatially explicit hunger projections for the year 2030, both under a poverty, as well as a prosperity scenario. Our model results indicate that while average yields decrease with climate change in all focus regions, the impact on the Costs of Food is very diverse. Costs of Food increase most in the Middle East and North Africa, where available agricultural land is already fully utilized and options to import food are limited. The increase is least in Sub-Saharan Africa, since production there can be shifted to areas which are only marginally affected by climate change and imports from other regions increase. South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa can partly adapt to climate change, in our model, by modifying trade and expanding agricultural land. In the Middle East and North Africa, almost the entire population is affected by increasing Costs of Food, but the share of people vulnerable to hunger is relatively low, due to relatively strong economic development in these projections. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the Vulnerability to Hunger will persist, but increases in Costs of Food are moderate. While in South Asia a high share of the population suffers from increases in Costs of Food and is exposed to hunger, only a negligible number of people will be exposed at extreme levels. Independent of the region, the impacts of climate change are less severe in a richer and more globalized world. Adverse climate impacts on the Costs of Food could be moderated by promoting technological progress in agriculture. Improving market access would be advantageous for farmers, providing the opportunity to profitably increase production in the Middle East and North Africa as well as in South Asia, but may lead to increasing Costs of Food for consumers. In the long-term perspective until 2080, the consequences of climate change will become even more severe: while in 2030 56% of the global population may face increasing Costs of Food in a poor and fragmented world, in 2080 the proportion will rise to 73%.