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Impacts of rising temperatures and farm management practices on global yields of 18 crops

Nature Food volume 1, pages 562–571 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Understanding the impact of changes in temperature and precipitation on crop yields is a vital step in developing policy and management options to feed the world. As most existing studies are limited to a few staple crops, we implemented global statistical models to examine the influence of weather and management practices on the yields of 18 crops, accounting for 70% of crop production by area and 65% by calorific intake. Focusing on the impact of temperature, we found considerable heterogeneity in the responses of yields across crops and countries. Irrigation was found to alleviate negative implications from temperature increases. Countries where increasing temperature causes the most negative impacts are typically the most food insecure, with the lowest calorific food supply and average crop yield. International action must be coordinated to raise yields in these countries through improvement and modernization of agricultural practices to counteract future adverse impacts of climate change.

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Fig. 1: Functional relationship between temperature and crop yield of cassava.
Fig. 2: Impacts of rising temperatures on crop yield and food safety globally for barley, cassava, cotton and groundnuts.
Fig. 3: Impacts of rising temperatures on crop yields and food safety globally for maize, millet, oats and potatoes.
Fig. 4: Impacts of rising temperatures on crop yields and food safety globally for pulses, rapeseed, rice and rye.
Fig. 5: Impacts of rising temperatures on crop yields and food safety globally for sorghum, soybeans, sugar beet and sunflowers.
Fig. 6: Impacts of rising temperatures on crop yields and food safety globally for sweet potatoes and wheat.

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Data availability

The data used in this study are available through the repository https://doi.org/10.5522/04/12768425.

Code availability

The scripts used in the estimation of the models and the production of the figures displayed in the main body of the paper are available through the repository https://doi.org/10.5522/04/12768425.

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Acknowledgements

The authors of this work have been supported as follows—P. Agnolucci, C.R., V.D.L. and P.E.: the Grantham Foundation, the UK Energy Research Centre through its Resource and Vectors theme (award EP/L024756/1) and the Addressing the Value of Nature and Energy Together (ADVENT) programme (Award NE/M019799/1); P. Alexander: the Resilience of the UK food system to Global Shocks (RUGS, BB/N020707/1); F.E. and R.H.: the UK Energy Research Centre through its Resource and Vectors theme (Award EP/L024756/1), the Addressing the Value of Nature and Energy Together (ADVENT) programme (Award NE/M019713/1) and the ERC grant SCALEFORES (grant agreement ID: 680176).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Sustainable Resources, University College London, London, UK

    Paolo Agnolucci, Chrysanthi Rapti, Vincenzo De Lipsis & Paul Ekins

  2. School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Peter Alexander

  3. School of Biological Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Robert A. Holland

  4. School of Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Robert A. Holland & Felix Eigenbrod

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  1. Paolo Agnolucci
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Contributions

All authors developed the research methodology. P. Agnolucci, V.D.L. and C.R. collected the data and computed the variables used in the estimation. P. Agnolucci and C.R. implemented the estimation. All authors contributed to writing up results.

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Correspondence to Paolo Agnolucci.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Discussion on the historic variation in yields and model performance, discussion on the effect of weather, irrigation, pesticides and fertilizers on crop yields, Supplementary Figs. 1–4 and Table 1.

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Agnolucci, P., Rapti, C., Alexander, P. et al. Impacts of rising temperatures and farm management practices on global yields of 18 crops. Nat Food 1, 562–571 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-020-00148-x

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