Potential India-Pakistan nuclear war threatens world food security: Report

Usage of nuclear weapons in sub-continent could disrupt global climate with food production falling as much as 21%.


Afp April 24, 2012

CHICAGO: More than a billion people around the world would face starvation if India and Pakistan were to unleash their nuclear weapons - even if that war remains limited to the region, a study released Tuesday warned.

That's because the deadly and polluting weapons would cause major worldwide climate disruption that would dramatically drive down food production in China, the United States and other countries. China and the US are two of the world’s biggest producers of food.

Combined, Pakistan and India are believed to have close to 150 nuclear warheads.

"The grim prospect of nuclear famine requires a fundamental change in our thinking about nuclear weapons," said study author Dr Ira Helfand of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

"The new evidence that even the relatively small nuclear arsenals of countries such as India and Pakistan could cause long lasting, global damage to the Earth's ecosystems and threaten hundreds of millions of already malnourished people demands that action be taken," Helfand said in a statement.

"The needless and preventable deaths of one billion people over a decade would be a disaster unprecedented in human history. It would not cause the extinction of the human race, but it would bring an end to modern civilization as we know it."

The study, set to be published in the peer-reviewed journal Climate Change, was released at the World Summit of Nobel Laureates in Chicago.

It found that corn production in the United States would decline by an average of 10 per cent for an entire decade and soybean production would drop by about 10 per cent, with the most severe decline occurring five years after the nuclear war.

It also determined that rice production in China would drop by an average of 21 per cent for the first four years and 10 per cent for the next six years.

The resulting increase in food prices and agricultural shortfalls would almost certainly lead to panic and hoarding on an international scale, further reducing access to food.

COMMENTS (4)

Hakabukka | 11 years ago | Reply

Well, it's not relevant to us as in this scenario; we won't be there to worry about food....

Pakistani | 11 years ago | Reply

A Nuclear blast anywhere in the world would effect the whole world, but if it goes off in the subcontinent it will directly effect the largest number of people.

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