Asweeping new analysis finds that warming global temperatures will dampen the world’s capacity to produce food from most staple crops, even after accounting for economic development and adaptation by farmers. New research offers the most comprehensive look yet at how global crop yields are likely to change as the planet warms.
After adjusting for how real farmers adapt, researchers estimate global yields of calories from staple crops in a high-emissions future will be 24 percent less in 2100 than they would be without climate change. U.S. agriculture and other breadbaskets are among the hardest-hit in the study’s projections, while regions in Canada, China and Russia may benefit.
In contrast to previous studies suggesting that warming could increase global food production, the researchers estimate that every additional degree Celsius of global warming on average will reduce the world’s ability to produce food by 120 calories per person per day, or 4.4 percent of current daily consumption.
“When global production falls, consumers are hurt because prices go up and it gets harder to access food and feed our families,” said Solomon Hsiang, professor of environmental social sciences at the Stanford University-Doerr School of Sustainability and a senior author of the study. “If the climate warms by 3 degrees, that’s basically like everyone on the planet giving up breakfast.”
That’s an extreme cost for a world where more than 800 million people at times go a day or more without food because of inadequate access.
The projected losses for U.S. agriculture are especially steep.
“Places in the Midwest that are really well-suited for present-day corn and soybean production just get hammered under a high-warming future,” said lead study author Andrew Hultgren, an assistant professor of agricultural and consumer economics at the University of Illinois. “You do start to wonder if the Corn Belt is going to be the Corn Belt in the future.”
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