According to a new University of Exeter study, global warming has forced crop pets to move toward the North and South Pole at a 3 km per year rate to escape the heat.

Current estimation suggests that 10 to 16 percent of global crops are lost to crop-damaging pests. These include fungi, bacteria, viruses, insects, nematodes, viroids and oomycetes. Losses incurred due to pest damage are estimated to be enough to feed at least 9 percent of the global population.  Researchers of a new study predict that this problem could further aggravate if global temperatures continue to rise at the current rate.

"Global food security is one of the major challenges we are going to face over the next few decades," BBC News quoted lead author Daniel Bebber of Exeter University as saying,

"We really don't want to be losing any more of our crops than is absolutely necessary to pests and pathogens."

The new study conducted by researchers from the Universities of Exeter and Oxford found the current global warming has forced crop pets to move towards the North and South Pole at a 3 km per year rate to escape the heat.

The researchers studied more than 600 types of pests around the world and discovered that these pests have been moving toward the poles at an average rate of 26.6 km per decade since the 1960s and conquering large crop areas.

"We believe the spread is driven to a large degree by global warming," Bebber told Reuters. The study is the first of its kind to estimate how pests are moving because of a changing climate.

According to the findings of the new study, scientists speculate that global warming is allowing these pests to adapt in thrive in regions that were previously believed to be too cold and unsuitable for them. Researchers also found that the rice blast fungus, which is present in over 80 countries and has a dramatic effect both on the agricultural economy and ecosystem health, has now moved to wheat. Considered a new disease, wheat blast is sharply reducing wheat yields in Brazil. 

"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," Bebber said in a press release. "Renewed efforts are required to monitor the spread of crop pests and to control their movement from region to region if we are to halt the relentless destruction of crops across the world in the face of climate change."