Climate Change is Making Us Sicker: A Shrinking Fall Crop and What That Means for Human Health

One misconception about climate change is that warmer temperatures will benefit farmers and longer growing seasons will bring more food. However, that cannot be further from the truth.

As climate change brings more extreme and unpredictable weather, summer crops are still at risk. What's more, shrinking fall planting windows will make critical fall crops less common and more dependent on pesticides to grow.

Climate Change Means Fewer Fall Crops

October 2023 was the hottest October on record. That was, until just a few days ago when October 2024 beat that record.

In the last five years, the first frost has been far beyond the predicted first frost date. According to the Virginia Mercury, the predicted frost date has moved back anywhere from 7 to 15 days since they were first recorded in 1895. 

Later frost dates and overall warmer fall temperatures are stifling fall crop production. Plants like spinach, kale, carrots, beets, and garlic may not germinate in hot conditions. For seeds that manage to germinate, the seedlings get leggy and bolt (flower) prematurely with consistent 70-degree daytime temperatures. 

Plants like beets and carrots need low overnight temperatures to grow quickly enough to develop before consistent freezing temperatures. While broccoli, radishes, arugula, and kale are cold-hearty, they do not survive long bouts of freezing or below-freezing temperatures and need to be harvested within the fall window or risk dying. 

Fall Crops and Our Health

Leafy greens and root vegetables are critical for human health. During the winter, our bodies need to supplement the Vitamin D they normally get from sunlight with food. Oily fish (like Salmon), mushrooms, eggs, and red meat all contain concentrations of Vitamin D. However, magnesium is needed to activate and circulate Vitamin D throughout the body. It's for this evolutionary reason that dark leafy greens that contain high concentrations of magnesium grow best in cooler fall temperatures.

Fall crops also contain higher concentrations of Vitamin A and Keratin, which help maintain the softer tissues in the respiratory and digestive tracts. During the winter months when illness is more prevalent, fall and winter crops boost our immune system and make us more resilient to disease.

Longer Summers Means More Pests

A later frost date also means a prolonged death date for common garden pests. Freezing and near-freezing temperatures wipe out the squash bugs, cabbage worms, white flies, and aphids that plague later summer and fall plants. Usually, gardeners and farmers can manually treat a small population of these nuisances and allow young plants to thrive until the first frost when the populations overwinter or die off.

But with frosts taking longer to arrive, the bugs explode in population and can be nearly impossible to keep up with. Pests like squash bugs, which are only supposed to experience one generation within a growing season, now see two generations within these newer, longer, summers. Crops like squash, broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage are especially susceptible to pest damage and may not grow to maturation at all with these alarming rates of garden pests. 

Pesticide Dependence and Our Health

A warming climate and increased pest populations will lead to an overdependence on pesticides. Pesticide use peaked in 1981 but has continued on an upward trend since the early 2000s. In 2023, the Americas were responsible for half of the world's pesticide use (Statistica 2023) and enacted fewer pesticide regulations than their European and Asian counterparts.

Study after study shows strong correlations between childhood and adult cancers and pesticide exposure. The Pesticide Action and Agroecology Network notes that "chemicals can trigger cancer in a variety of ways, including disrupting hormones, damaging DNA, inflaming tissues, and turning genes on or off."

As large and local farmers aim to meet fall crop demands despite growing pest concerns, they will undoubtedly consider non-organic solutions and risk public health.

Climate Change Remains A Threat to Human Health

While a warming climate may lengthen summer growing seasons, the shorter fall and spring growing seasons will inevitably threaten our ability to grow key vegetables. If climate change is not addressed, we will rely on chemical mitigation to fight booming pest populations. These are just two of the ways climate change will continue to make us sicker.