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CLIMATE CHANGE

Global warming and China’s crop pests

Nature Food volume 3, pages 6–7 (2022)Cite this article

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A new dataset that comprises more than 5,500 historical crop pest and disease records in China provides a unique opportunity to understand how climate affects crop pest and disease outbreaks.

Perhaps the most comprehensive global dataset on CPD distributions is that compiled by the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI), which has been abstracting information on observations of species affecting agricultural production from the scientific and ‘grey’ literature for many decades6. These distribution records have been analysed extensively to reveal global patterns and trends in the burden of CPD to agriculture3,7. However, there are issues with this dataset. The probability of a CPD being listed as present in a particular country or subnational region is strongly biased by the scientific and technical capacity of countries to detect, identify and report a presence4. Hence, CPD reporting from countries with relatively low rates of scientific publication (often in the Global South) is less likely than from countries with strong scientific capacity. High production levels of a diverse range of crops suggest that China should harbour the greatest number of CPDs, yet relatively few are present in CABI databases because Chinese CPD records were formerly inaccessible4. Following the reopening of the country in 1978, Chinese scientific research has accelerated rapidly and the publication of CPD distributions is a welcome corollary of this scientific renaissance5.

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Fig. 1: China’s long history of crop pest and pathogen monitoring.

CPA Media Pte Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo.

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  1. Department of Biosciences and Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    Daniel P. Bebber

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  1. Daniel P. Bebber
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Correspondence to Daniel P. Bebber.

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Bebber, D.P. Global warming and China’s crop pests. Nat Food 3, 6–7 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00427-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00427-1

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