Production rates for grain grew to record levels this year, but climate stresses seen this summer will likely depress those numbers in 2013, according to an analysis from the Worldwatch Institute.

This year, global grain production is expected to increase 1 percent over last year, shattering records at 2.4 billion tons. The volume of animal feed, primarily based on corn, grew fastest, at 2.4 percent. Grain production for human consumption increased by 1.1 percent from last year, wrote Danielle Nierenberg and Katie Spoden, the authors of the report.

These amounts will diminish in the coming years, said Nierenberg, director of the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet program. This summer's drought across the Midwestern states has agriculture officials expecting corn yields to be at their lowest level in more than 15 years (Greenwire, Aug. 10).

"The main point is that the impacts of climate change are going to become increasingly evident over the next decades," Nierenberg said.

According to the U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction, the World Food Programme, and Oxfam International, about 375 million people will be affected by climate change-related disasters by 2015, the Worldwatch analysis explains. By 2050, 10 to 20 percent more people will be faced with hunger due to climate change-related impacts, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

When drought hits the United States, said Nierenberg, "it's the rest of the world that really suffers. It's the poor who suffer the most."