Robust assessment of climatic risks to crop production

Abstract

In the face of ever-increasing climate extremes, robust crop–climate risk assessments are lacking, limiting our ability to transform towards more sustainable food production systems.

In an era of progressive global warming, the world is witnessing a surge in the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events such as heatwaves, droughts, excessive rain and compounding events¹. The risks associated with these events often have devastating consequences for agricultural production, farmer livelihoods and food security, and dangerous nitrogen losses to the environment. Understanding and quantifying the risk of crop failure is crucial for devising strategies to improve food security and livelihoods in the short term, as well as for de-risking investment decisions of farmers, food system actors and policymakers around the longer-term transformation of agri-food systems towards sustainability². Although the agricultural modelling community has made considerable strides in appraising the impacts of mean climate changes, there has been much less success in developing methods to assess risks from extreme weather³. Prominent agricultural projections have caught the attention of policymakers and adaptation planners using the best available tools⁴, but improvement is needed to support agricultural and food system interventions. Here, we outline critical research gaps to be addressed for the agricultural modelling community to support building scientific knowledge on which agricultural risks can be managed.