Agriculture and food security under a changing climate: An underestimated challenge

[en] Pathways to eradicate global hunger while bending the curve of biodiversity loss unanimously suggest changing to less energy-rich diets, closing yield gaps through agroecological principles, adopting modern breeding technologies to foster stress resilience and yields, as well as minimizing harvest losses and food waste. Against the background of a brief history of global agriculture, we review the available evidence on how the global food system might look given a global temperature increase by 3 . We show that a moderate gain in the area suitable for agriculture is confronted with substantial yield losses through strains on crop physiology, multitrophic interactions, and more frequent extreme events. Selfamplifying feedback are unresolved and might lead to further losses. In light of these uncertainties, we see that complexity is underestimated and more systemic research is needed. Efﬁciency gains in agriculture, albeit indispensable, will not be enough to achieve food security under severe climate change.

Research center :

Luxembourg Centre for Socio-Environmental Systems (LCSES)

Disciplines :

Agriculture & agronomy

Author, co-author :

SEPPELT, Ralf ; University of Luxembourg > Luxembourg Centre for Socio-Environmental Systems (LCSES)

Klotz, Stefan

Peiter, Edgar

Volk, Martin

External co-authors :

yes

Language :

English

Title :

Agriculture and food security under a changing climate: An underestimated challenge

Publication date :

2022

Journal title :

iScience

eISSN :

2589-0042

Publisher :

Elsevier, Cambridge, Us ma

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

105551

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Focus Area :

Sustainable Development

Development Goals :

2. Zero hunger
3. Good health and well-being
13. Climate action

Additional URL :

https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2589004222018235

Available on ORBilu :

since 22 May 2025

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