A study from a project co-chaired by former 1st District congressman Doug Bereuter says climate change threatens to undermine not only how much food can be grown but also the quality of that food, as altered weather patterns lead to a less desirable harvest.

Crops grown by many of the nation’s farmers have a lower nutritional content than they once did, according to the report by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

Research indicates that higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have reduced the protein content in wheat, for example. And the International Rice Research Institute has warned that the quality of rice available to consumers will decline as temperatures rise, the report noted.

The council has been examining the effects of climate change on food for several months as part of a project co-chaired by former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman and former Rep. Doug Bereuter, R-Neb., president emeritus of the Asia Foundation.

Others on the advisory group for the project are prominent agribusiness leaders, such as Jose Luis Prado, president of Quaker Foods North America, Paul E. Schickler, president of Dupont Pioneer, scientists, academic leaders, former Kansas Gov. John Carlin, now chair of the Kansas Bioscience Authority, and Howard Buffett, a Nebraska farmer and grandson of Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett.

The U.S. should embrace research into animal biology and plant management with the kind of enthusiasm it did space exploration in the 1960s, the council said, warning that the consequences of inaction could be severe.

“History has shown that with adequate resources and support, agriculture can meet growing production demands and adapt to some changes in climate,” Bereuter said in a news release. “But greater emphasis on adaptation must begin now.”

The report, titled Advancing Global Food Security in the Face of a Changing Climate, was released Thursday at the council’s Global Food Security Symposium 2014 in Washington, where 500 policymakers and scientists were gathered.

“Adaptation must begin now,” the report said. “Developing the necessary scientific breakthroughs and broadly disseminating them will require years, even decades of lead time.”

Climate change initially will produce both winners and losers when it comes to food production, the report said, but research has indicated that growing regions everywhere will eventually suffer from global warming.

The report calls on the U.S. government to integrate climate change adaptation into its global food security strategy. Recommendations include:

* Passing legislation for a long-term global food and nutrition security strategy.

* Increasing spending for agricultural research on climate change adaptation.

* Collecting better data and making information on weather more widely available to farmers. There are significant global data gaps right now on weather, water, crop performance, land use and consumer preferences.

* Increasing spending for partnerships between U.S. universities and those in low-income countries.

* Urging that food security be addressed through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals.

Another conclusion, closer to the soil: Plant and animal germplasm preservation for domesticated and wild species needs to be a priority.

“As temperatures rise, rainfall patterns change and variability increases, farmers will need to figure out what their new normal might become, and, in fact, whether change is the new normal,” the report concluded.

Google Plus: Evidence is mounting against camels as leading suspects in a deadly mystery that's claimed more than 100 lives in the Middle East.

The biological supervillain is the virus causing MERS-coV, short for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, a type of coronavirus.

Since the first documented cases in spring 2012, MERS has sickened at least 339 people in Saudi Arabia alone and killed nearly a third of them, according to the country's Ministry of Health.

A recent surge in reported cases -- including 26 new ones this past weekend -- has fanned concern the outbreak might be shifting into a more dangerous phase.

 Saudi officials see spike in MERS virus

With any newly recognized virus, disease detectives start with a few key questions. What kind of illness does it cause? How is it spread? And where does it come from?

 Killer coronavirus in the Middle East WHO tracks new coronavirus to Middle East Health workers infected with coronavirus

With regard to that last question, a new paper leaves little doubt that at least one answer is camels.

Researchers from Columbia University, King Saud University and the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance managed to isolate live MERS virus from two single-humped camels, known as dromedaries.

Should I be concerned about new virus?

A genetic analysis found numerous substrains in the camel viruses, including one that perfectly matches a substrain isolated from a human patient. The findings are published in mBio, the open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

The attention on camels isn't new; in February, the same group published a finding that nearly three-quarters of camels in Saudi Arabia tested positive for past exposure to the MERS coronavirus.

The new paper still leaves many questions unanswered: For example, what other animals might harbor the virus? Could it be bats, as some have suggested?

"There might be another animal, but we don't know," says Dr. Ian Lipkin, who organized the research as director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health. "We need more in terms of surveillance."

Does the virus make camels sick? Researchers don't know, says Peter Daszak, another study author and president of the EcoHealth Alliance, which researches links between animal health and human disease.

Perhaps most urgent: Has something recently changed to make MERS-coV more dangerous?

Here, some of the evidence is reassuring. Any avid mystery reader knows that a watchdog who doesn't bark can be an important clue. With MERS, there is a lack of alarm bells from the laboratory; so far there is no evidence that the virus is changing to attack people more aggressively or to spread more easily.

There isn't enough evidence to draw a firm conclusion, says Dr. Mark Denison, a leading expert on coronaviruses and a professor of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University. It also remains to be seen whether humans are being infected by more than one of the substrains found in camels. "There's a lot more work that would need to be done" to prove it, he says.

Those who study MERS-coV say it's crucial to pin down just how the virus is transmitted.

"We need to know what people are most at risk," Daszak says. "We don't know if they're involved in camel racing, camel breeding, camel slaughter -- that's really critical right now."

Lipkin says the virus likely spreads in a variety of ways, but he'd like to see more aggressive steps taken to prevent the possibility of people being infected by eating camel meat or drinking raw, unpasteurized camel milk -- both of which are common in Saudi Arabia.

He says the Saudis will face special concerns again this fall when millions descend on the holy cities of Mecca and Medina for the Hajj pilgrimage. As part of the ritual, animals are sacrificed, and their meat shipped all over the world to help feed the hungry.

Saudis: More deaths from respiratory syndrome

"The butchery will begin in three or four months' time, and we have to have measures in place to ensure that the animals aren't infected," Lipkin says. For example, he says, officials could decide to forbid the slaughter of young camels for food since younger animals are more likely to carry the MERS virus.

Dr. David Swerdlow, who heads the team responsible for tracking MERS at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says the Saudi government took steps to discourage the spread of the virus during last year's Hajj, including posting warnings to discourage people older than 65, pregnant women or those who were immune-compromised from making the pilgrimage.

Health authorities have not yet decided what steps to take this year, Swerdlow says, but the United States is watching the situation closely.

"Any time you have an emerging infection that has a high case fatality rate, that's been around for over a year, that has caused illness in multiple countries, that's caused illness in travelers and health care workers, and for which there is no treatment or vaccine, we're concerned. We've been concerned for a year and a half, and we remain concerned."