It’s estimated that enough crops are lost every year to feed nine percent of the global population. This should be a startling figure. That’s about 600 million persons worth of food, or enough food to feed two United States.This lost food disappears into the guts of nematodes and insects, or it dies with crops overrun by bacteria, fungus, or viruses; it’s feeding something, but not human beings. This number is all the more starting when you consider agriculture’s accelerating arms race against pests in the forms of genetically modified crops, new and “better” (more effective) pesticides, finely tuned planting techniques, etc. Indeed, humans have no guarantee of winning the pest war, let along reclaiming the estimated 10 to 14 percent of lost crops. And for our agricultural stalemate we’re only rewarded with more and more humans to feed as Earth accelerates toward 10 billion people. Bummer.Well, here’s some good news … for pests. Climate change is on your side, according to a new report in Nature Climate Change studying the distributions of 612 different pest species. The paper, which comes courtesy of researchers at the University of Exeter and the University of Oxford, estimates that climate change is extending the range of crop pests toward the North and South Poles at a rate of 3 km per year. Which doesn’t sound like very much, but consider those two bands of new territory extending around the globe and we’re talking about a great deal of land. Figure also that this has been underway for at least 50 years (the period studied).The general idea here is simple enough, and features a particular human component unrelated to climate change. To take over new territory, pests need a way to get there. For this, the researchers cite modern international freight transportation: globalization. So, some or another bacteria hitches a ride on a winter tomato and, once arrived, the warmer climate makes it easier for the bacteria (or fungus or bug or worm) to establish itself and thrive. Consider the rice blast fungus moving beyond rice to wheat, or the Mountain pine beetle moving into higher latitudes like the Pacific Northwest, where it’s now wreaking havoc on forests. The study is basically correlating these moves with increased temperatures in the species’ destination regions.Exeter’s Dr Dan Bebber delivers the summarizing quote: "If crop pests continue to march polewards as the Earth warms the combined effects of a growing world population and the increased loss of crops to pests will pose a serious threat to global food security." And we all know what happens when global food security is threatened.@everydayelk