Abstract
Climate change could pose a major challenge to efforts towards strongly increase food production over the coming decades. However, model simulations of future climate-impacts on crop yields differ substantially in the magnitude and even direction of the projected change. Combining observations of current maximum-attainable yield with climate analogues, we provide a complementary method of assessing the effect of climate change on crop yields. Strong reductions in attainable yields of major cereal crops are found across a large fraction of current cropland by 2050. These areas are vulnerable to climate change and have greatly reduced opportunity for agricultural intensification. However, the total land area, including regions not currently used for crops, climatically suitable for high attainable yields of maize, wheat and rice is similar by 2050 to the present-day. Large shifts in land-use patterns and crop choice will likely be necessary to sustain production growth rates and keep pace with demand.
Highlights
Climate change could pose a major challenge to efforts towards strongly increase food production over the coming decades
Using future climate projections from five General Circulation Models (GCMs) that contributed to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) as part of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)[17], we identify present-day analogues of future climatic conditions, across the current global cropland area, with medium- and long-term (2081–2099, end-of-century) perspectives
By mid-century, following a strong climate change scenario (Representative Concentration Pathway, RCP, 8.5; Methods section) we find that most current wheat, maize and rice areas are within climatic conditions under which these crops are cultivated today (Supplementary Fig. 1), the analogues may be drawn from very distant locations
Summary
Climate change could pose a major challenge to efforts towards strongly increase food production over the coming decades. Many research groups develop and operate global-scale crop-climate models, but the necessary data for model development, parameterization and evaluation is often not available at this scale[11], and in most cases, global-scale assessments fail to account for farmer adaptation to climate change[7,9] As a result, these models vary strongly in both the magnitude and overall direction of their yield projections, an effect which is especially pronounced across the tropics and arid regions[7]. These models vary strongly in both the magnitude and overall direction of their yield projections, an effect which is especially pronounced across the tropics and arid regions[7] This uncertainty impedes understanding the scope of the societal challenge of climate change impacts on agriculture, in developing countries where agriculture has larger shares in gross domestic product. The technique allows us to (i) assess the change in attainable crop yield across the current global cropland area for each of maize, wheat and rice, (ii) identify areas where current dominant crops are likely to no longer be suitable in future, and (iii) to explore potential new growth locations for these crops
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