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Climate change impacts on banana yields around the world

Nature Climate Change volume 9, pages 752–757 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Nutritional diversity is a key element of food security1,2,3. However, research on the effects of climate change on food security has, thus far, focused on the main food grains4,5,6,7,8, while the responses of other crops, particularly those that play an important role in the developing world, are poorly understood. Bananas are a staple food and a major export commodity for many tropical nations9. Here, we show that for 27 countries—accounting for 86% of global dessert banana production—a changing climate since 1961 has increased annual yields by an average of 1.37 t ha−1. Past gains have been largely ubiquitous across the countries assessed and African producers will continue to see yield increases in the future. However, global yield gains could be dampened or disappear, reducing to 0.59 t ha−1 and 0.19 t ha−1 by 2050 under the climate scenarios for Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 and 8.5, respectively, driven by declining yields in the largest producers and exporters. By quantifying climate-driven and technology-driven influences on yield, we also identify countries at risk from climate change and those capable of mitigating its effects or capitalizing on its benefits.

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Fig. 1: Climate–yield model parameter estimates for banana cultivation.
Fig. 2: Effects of past and future climate change on banana yields.
Fig. 3: Effect of changes in climate and cultivation efficiency (technology) on banana yields (1961 to 2016).
Fig. 4: Future climate-risk assessment for major banana-producing countries (by 2050).

Data availability

All data used are publicly available and open access. All banana production data sources are listed in Supplementary Table 1. All climatic and topographic data sources are listed in the Methods.

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Acknowledgements

The study was funded by Global Food Security grant no. BB/N020847/1 and EC Horizon 2020 project ID 727624. The funders had no role in the study design or execution. The authors thank F. Savory for feedback on the manuscript. Base maps were created using administrative region polygons from GADM v.2.8 (https://gadm.org/).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    Varun Varma & Daniel P. Bebber

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  1. Varun Varma
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  2. Daniel P. Bebber
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Contributions

D.B. designed the study. V.V. collated and analysed the data in discussion with D.B. V.V. wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daniel P. Bebber.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information: Nature Climate Change thanks Geoffrey Sabiiti and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Tables 1–6, Supplementary Figs. 1–30 and Supplementary Appendix/Supplementary Appendix Figs. 1–3.

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Varma, V., Bebber, D.P. Climate change impacts on banana yields around the world. Nat. Clim. Chang. 9, 752–757 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0559-9

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