Impact of climate change on global agricultural markets under different shared socioeconomic pathways

Abstract

We quantify changes in global agricultural trade by 2050 for maize, rice, soybeans, and wheat due to variations in commodity yields triggered by climate change. Our scenarios are differentiated by population levels and economic growth rates associated with three shared socioeconomic pathways. A baseline assuming no climate change is compared to a scenario consistent with a representative concentration pathway (RCP) assuming a radiative force of 8.5 W m −2 , i.e., RCP8.5. The baseline and the scenarios will establish an upper and lower bound of economic effects associated with yield changes from climate change. Our results show price increases for maize of 61.3%-80.9%, for soybeans of 36.7%-51.7%, and for wheat of 5.4%-11.1% depending on the shared socioeconomic pathway. Rice benefits from CO 2 fertilization and we see a relatively constant price decrease of 19.5%-19.9% across the scenarios.Global agricultural area for all scenarios is expected to be higher between 1.3% and 2.3% in 2050. Depending on the crop and country/region, there are significant reductions in production especially for maize. Absolute changes in trade patterns are most pronounced for wheat and least for rice. The increase in cropland will lead to additional carbon emissions enforcing climate change. Intra-and inter-country welfare changes are inevitable under climate change given the increases in crop prices and changes in trade. Our policy implications highlight the importance of economic growth, which leads to lower commodity prices in absolute terms and hence, higher food security. Less cropland is used under the higher economic growth scenario, which represents a trade-off given the potential for higher carbon release under higher economic growth.

Towards a sustainable food production: modelling the impacts of climate change on maize and soybean production in Ghana

“…Climate change has affected major crops such as maize and soybeans, according to previous studies (Basche et al 2016 ; Dumortier et al 2021 ). An investigation by Wang et al ( 2020 ) looked at the effects of drought on maize and soybean output in China and found that drought frequency and intensity were negatively affecting the two crops.…”

Economic impacts of climate change on EU agriculture: will the farmers benefit from global climate change?

“…Although such combined studies exist at the global level considering macro regions (e.g. Nelson et al 2014, Van Meijl et al 2018, Dumortier et al 2021, respective comprehensive regional analysis is rather scarce or non-existent in the context of a large ensemble of climate change scenarios from different climate and crop models globally applied in a consistent manner. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to quantify the possible consequences of climate change for EU agriculture in 2050, considering both biophysical impacts and agricultural market interactions within a consistent modelling framework.…”

Will recent world events shift policy-makers’ focus from sustainable agriculture to intensive and competitive agriculture?

“…However, now they suffer from a negative trade balance [ 8 ]. Hence the typical difficulties of the war economy in the European area, which, between the interruption of trade relations and the sanctions decided by the international community against Russia, have generated the consequences mentioned above [ 9 , 10 ].…”