Food-Climate Nexus

Urban development in China has led to cropland loss and displacement over the past decades. This study uses a model-based approach to estimate spatial flows of grain, disaggregated by transport modal choices and routes, to explore the increase in carbon emission associated with the transport of cereals, tubers and soybean in China over 1990–2015.

Global agricultural markets can partially compensate for halted crop exports from Ukraine and Russia by increasing wheat and maize production in other areas, but carbon emissions and global food insecurity will also increase.

The exact contribution of food systems to air pollution is unknown. On the basis of the European Commission’s EDGAR-FOOD database, a global emission inventory of air pollutants from the food systems, this study quantifies historic emissions of major pollutant compounds at each stage of the food supply chain at country level.

The nutritional, economic and livelihood contributions provided by aquatic food systems are threatened by climate change. Building climate resilience requires systemic interventions that reduce social vulnerabilities.

Climate change affects agricultural productivity. New systematic global agricultural yield projections of the major crops were conducted using ensembles of the latest generation of crop and climate models. Substantial shifts in global crop productivity due to climate change will occur within the next 20 years—several decades sooner than previous projections—highlighting the need for targeted food system adaptation and risk management in the coming decades.

Crop exposure to sunlight may be affected by air pollution, climate change and geoengineering. Empirical estimates of the effects of atmospheric opacity on sunlight reveal important changes in maize and soy yields in the United States, Europe, Brazil and China.

The world’s future food security will certainly be affected by extreme climate events, yet the location and magnitude of their impact are often overlooked. Using crop yield and food need projections under different socioeconomic conditions, this study estimates the share of the population at the risk of hunger under high and low greenhouse gas emission scenarios in the face of climate extremes.

Chinese agricultural production is key to achieve the country’s 2060 carbon neutrality target. Combining meta-analysis and life-cycle assessment, this study estimates the climate change mitigation potential of straw, biochar, and an integrated biomass pyrolysis and electricity generation system.

Global assessments of greenhouse gas emissions from nitrogen fertilizers show that production accounts for approximately one-third of total greenhouse gas emissions, with the remainder coming from the use phase. Intervention technologies at both the production and use phases could reduce up to 84% of global greenhouse gas emissions of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers by 2050.

Integrated structural and technological changes across the Chinese pork supply chain can improve production and meet demand while reducing phosphorous and nitrogen losses.

Estimating the global cropland N₂O mitigation potential is limited by the uncertainty and variability of direct emission factors (EFs). Here, using a data-driven approach with 1,507 chamber-based field observations of EFs, the study shows that EF variation is primarily driven by climatic and edaphic factors. Two-thirds of the mitigation potential could be achieved on one-fifth of the global harvested area, mainly located in humid subtropical climates and across gleysols and acrisols.

The exact contribution of alternative diets to climate change mitigation depends on several factors, including where these diets are adopted. This study quantifies avoided greenhouse gas emissions that would result from a shift to EAT–Lancet diets in 54 high-income countries through agricultural production and the restoration of natural vegetation in saved lands.

Large-scale land transactions can promote agricultural intensification but may be accompanied by negative socioeconomic and environmental consequences. Estimated carbon emissions from converting transacted lands to large-scale farms can reach up to 2.26 Gt, with the majority emitting from Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America and Oceania; mitigation strategies are discussed.

Emissions abatement efforts in the agriculture, forestry and land-use sector are vital to achieve climate change mitigation targets, but their effects on food security remain poorly understood. Using six global agroeconomic models, this study explores how afforestation, bioenergy and non-CO₂ emissions reductions could impact agricultural prices and the risk of hunger under different scenarios.

Current cropping calendar management erodes wheat yield potential in the rice–wheat cropping system of eastern India. By combining field and household survey data, time series of remotely sensed information and dynamic crop simulations, this study shows that exploitable wheat yield gaps could increase by 69% through planting date adjustments that enhance climate resilience.

An integrated methodology that includes climate, crop, economic and life cycle assessment models was developed to explore the climate adaptation and mitigation opportunities throughout the US potato and tomato supply chains. This study shows that supply chains for two popular processed products in the United States, French fries and pasta sauce, will be remarkably resilient, through planting adaptation strategies.

Climate change may pose a fundamental challenge to maintaining the high productivity of US dairy systems. Based on weather variability and milk yields from 1981 to 2018, this study estimates the impact of extreme heat and cold on productivity, the sensitivity of specific regions and the importance of farm management for mediating such impacts.

A key climate change adaptation goal in agriculture is to reduce drought sensitivity of crop yields. A comparison of two empirical strategies applied to US maize for detecting changes in drought sensitivity reveals the advantages of utilizing within-country spatial variability in drought exposure, driven primarily by differences in soil water-storage capacity.

Estimates of greenhouse gas emissions associated with feeding the world population rarely account for specific nutrient gaps. This study applies a composite indicator of emissions intensity of nutrient production to calculate non-CO₂ emissions of closing the global dietary gaps for energy, protein, iron, zinc, vitamin A, vitamin B12 and folate in 2030 under five climate-friendly scenarios.

Income reduction in high-income regions is insufficient for mitigating food systems greenhouse gas emissions. A deeper transformation is required that changes consumption patterns and prices emissions.

Whether, how and to what extent integrating crop production, livestock production and bioenergy systems can enhance the sustainability of specialized farming remains poorly understood at downscaled regional levels. This study quantifies life cycle impacts of agricultural integration in China, including bioenergy provision.

Shifting from cattle farming to camels and goats could deliver more sustainable milk production under climate-change-induced heat stress and resource scarcity in the drylands of north sub-Saharan Africa.

Optimizing biomass use by reducing food–feed competition is paramount to achieving sustainable food systems. This study assesses global food systems in terms of livestock and aquaculture feed use and the availability of food system by-products and residues to quantify the potential for replacing food-grade feeds with food system by-products.