Tag Archives: crops

Climate & Agriculture 6: Global agricultural benefits of keeping warming below 1.5 degrees (IPCC)

Yes, while the human population keeps growing, climate change is likely to cause various detrimental effects on global agriculture and thereby food security. Like other climate change impacts these effects will increase with the magnitude of the warming, and most … Continue reading →

Climate & Agriculture 5: Risk of declining (tropical) crop yields has been known for over 25 years

Not just from theoretical thinking, but as calculated outcomes of pioneering climate-crop prediction models – with studies from the early nineties already offering broad patterns of expected changes in agricultural productivity in a warming world. These patterns have of course … Continue reading →

Climate & Agriculture 4: Yes, heat stress also affects wheat – recent European summers show

Part 3 of this series about the impacts of climate change on global agriculture was centred around a climate model study that indicated major global crop belts could experience production declines as a result of increased heat stress. These authors … Continue reading →

Climate & Agriculture 3: Temperate and subtropical agriculture equally affected by heat stress

Our previous post focused on a study indicating climate change can lead to a net decline in African agricultural productivity – at least for five major food staples, with maize being the most important. The study also showed that it … Continue reading →

Climate & Agriculture 2: African net agricultural productivity to decline for 5 major food staples

The impact of 21st century climate change on African agriculture deserves special attention, considering rapid population growth and the fact that the continent is currently already a net importer of agricultural products, while several sub-Saharan countries still depend for a … Continue reading →

SRM geoengineering more likely to increase global food production

If we would pump aerosols in the stratosphere to artificially cool the Earth and thereby compensate (part of) the current climate warming, we would be permanently living under a slight sunshade. That would mean in a futuristic world it may … Continue reading →

Genetic manipulation of circadian rhythm may open up all-season crop yields

Just like human beings plants too have a biological clock, which prepares them to make optimal use of both day and night – and which helps them to nicely tune their annual growth cycle within the appropriate seasons. It is … Continue reading →

Crop geoengineering #3: doubling root depth would store 230 Gt carbon in agricultural soils – minus 118 ppm CO2

Breeding crops with deeper (and larger) root systems could help to lower atmospheric CO2 levels, while also making the crops better drought-resistant, Douglas Kell, a Professor of Bioanalytical Science at the University of Manchester says.