The Future of Dryland Cereals and Legumes in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa: Climate resilient crops for food security

Beans, Beans, and the power of Genes

Agriculture is one of the key foundations of human society. Agriculture has come to be recognized as an elemental component in improving the lives of people around the world given its multifaceted roles as an economic activity, as the foundation of human nutrition, and as a way of life. When…

Biophysical and economic implications for agriculture of +1.5° and +2.0°C global warming using AgMIP Coordinated Global and Regional Assessments

This study presents results of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) Coordinated Global and Regional Assessments (CGRA) of +1.5° and +2.0°C global warming above pre-industrial conditions. This first CGRA application provides multi-discipline, multi-scale, and multi-model perspectives to elucidate major challenges for the agricultural sector caused by direct biophysical…

Global food systems: Can foresight learn from hindsight?

Construction of plausible scenarios for alternative futures of global food systems requires an understanding of how the past led to the present, and the past’s likely relevance to the future. Policy actions affected the past, but are very difficult to foresee. Among those that most shaped global food systems in…

Future-proof crops: challenges and strategies for climate resilience improvement

Breeding for stress-resilient crops strongly depends on technological and biological advancements that have provided a wealth of information on genetic variants and their contribution to stress tolerance. In the context of the upcoming challenges for agriculture due to climate change, such as prolonged and/or increased stress intensities, CO2 increase and…

Disability-adjusted life years due to chronic and hidden hunger under food system evolution with climate change and adaptation to 2050

Climate change presents an increasing challenge for food-nutrition security. Nutrition metrics calculated from quantitative food system projections can help focus policy actions.To estimate future chronic and hidden hunger disability-adjusted life years (DALYs)—due to protein-energy undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies, respectively—using food systems projections to evaluate the potential impact of climate change…

Modeling impacts of faster productivity growth to inform the CGIAR initiative on Crops to End Hunger

In 2017–2018, a group of international development funding agencies launched the Crops to End Hunger initiative to modernize public plant breeding in lower-income countries. To inform that initiative, USAID asked the International Food Policy Research Institute and the United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service to estimate the impacts…

Climate Change and hunger: Estimating costs of adaptation in the agrifood system