American Journal of Agricultural Economics<\/a>, analysed 1.4 million truckloads of tomatoes transported from thousands of farm fields to processing facilities between 2011 and 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\nDr Sarah Whitnall, from The University of Western Australia\u2019s School of Agriculture and Environment, conducted the analysis during her postdoctoral research at the University of California, in Davis, US.<\/p>\n
\u201cResults highlighted how highly coordinated and efficient supply chains can buffer agricultural industries from climate impacts,\u201d Dr Whitnall said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is rare to find a case where climate change has only a negligible effect but the supply chain is a well-oiled machine and losses are relatively small, and\u00a0 while temperature does increase loss, it\u2019s not by a huge amount.\u201d<\/p>\n
Truckload was linked to hourly temperature and traffic records, and it found losses were lowest when cool temperatures coincided with slower traffic.<\/p>\n
The highest losses occurred when heat combined with congestion and even then, the share of damaged tomatoes rose only from around one to two per cent.<\/p>\n
Dr Whitnall said the findings are particularly relevant for Australia, where agricultural supply chains often span long distances and face increasing heat stress.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough this case study is from California, the lesson for Australia is clear \u2014 efficiency is a powerful form of climate adaptation,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cCoordination along our supply chains reduces food loss and builds resilience as temperatures rise.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said similar research could help industries such as horticulture and viticulture to better understand and respond to climate pressures across transport and logistics networks.<\/p>\n
The research was supported by the US Department of Agriculture\u2019s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New research has revealed rising temperatures and traffic congestion cause minimal losses in California\u2019s processing tomato industry, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[183195,6634,64,63,68,44,19574,11037,1191,49280],"class_list":["post-326243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-agricultural-and-resource-economics","tag-agriculture","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-climate-change","tag-news","tag-temperature","tag-tomatoes","tag-traffic","tag-uwa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}