Yield Trends Are Insufficient to Double Global Crop Production by 2050

By D. Ray, N. Mueller, Paul C. West, J. Foley. PLoS ONE, 2013

3,113 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Several studies have shown that global crop production needs to double by 2050 to meet the projected demands from rising population, diet shifts, and increasing biofuels consumption. Boosting crop yields to meet these rising demands, rather than clearing more land for agriculture has been highlighted as a preferred solution to meet this goal. However, we first need to understand how crop yields are changing globally, and whether we are on track to double production by 2050. Using ∼2.5 million agricultural statistics, collected for ∼13,500 political units across the world, we track four key global crops—maize, rice, wheat, and soybean—that currently produce nearly two-thirds of global agricultural calories. We find that yields in these top four crops are increasing at 1.6%, 1.0%, 0.9%, and 1.3% per year, non-compounding rates, respectively, which is less than the 2.4% per year rate required to double global production by 2050. At these rates global production in these crops would increase by ∼67%, ∼42%, ∼38%, and ∼55%, respectively, which is far below what is needed to meet projected demands in 2050. We present detailed maps to identify where rates must be increased to boost crop production and meet rising demands.

Subfields: Ecology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9308b27baf24b4f389fb54e17b629c21e263e1b5

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Citations in the corpus

Global food self-sufficiency in the 21st century under sustainable intensification of agriculture (2020, background): “However, current crop yield trends do not put us on track to double food production by 2050 (Ray et al 2013).”
Sustainable intensification of agriculture for human prosperity and global sustainability (2016, background): “In order to feed the world in 2050, global food productionmay have to increase by 60–110 % (Pretty 2008; IAASTD 2008; Tilman et al. 2011; Ray et al. 2013; Pardey et al. 2014).”
Rates and drivers of mangrove deforestation in Southeast Asia, 2000–2012 (2015, background): “Demands are expected to further intensify as populations and global affluence increase, and further LULCC is expected, given that future demand cannot be met by yield increases of currently cropped lands alone (3).”
A Pipeline Strategy for Grain Crop Domestication (2016, background): “4% yr−1 (Ray et al., 2013).”
Yield gap analysis of rainfed wheat demonstrates local to global relevance (2016, background): “…substantial global population increases, challenges in adapting to climate change, as well as anticipated changes in diets and consumption patterns by 2050, have raised concerns about food security in the decades ahead (Tilman et al. 2011; Ray et al. 2013; Fischer et al. 2014; Keating et al. 2014).”
expVIP: a Customizable RNA-seq Data Analysis and Visualization Platform1[OPEN] (2016, background): “The global demand for staple crops is predicted to double by 2050 (FAO, 2009; Tilman et al., 2011), which will require an annual increase in yield of approximately 2.4% (Ray et al., 2013).”
Global Synthesis of Drought Effects on Maize and Wheat Production (2016, neutral): “These numbers need to be increased by 60% to 110% by 2050 to meet the increasing human population, meat and dairy consumption, as well as biofuel industry [2].”
Genetic Improvement of U.S. Soybean in Maturity Groups II, III, and IV (2014, background): “The global rate of yield increase in soybean will need to almost double to meet the population demands predicted for 2050 (Ray et al., 2013).”
Speed breeding: a powerful tool to accelerate crop research and breeding (2017, background): “The growing human population and a changing environment have raised significant concern for global food security, with the current improvement rate of several important crops inadequate to meet future demand [1].”
Trade-offs between environment and livelihoods: Bridging the global land use and food security discussions (2017, positive): “Intensification along current yields trends would be insufficient for doubling production, which would require an extra expansion of 219 Mha only for maize, rice, wheat and soybean (Ray et al. 2013).”
Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Strategies of Agriculture in Mediterranean-Climate Regions (MCRs) (2019, background): “As investment in agricultural research and development has proven to be an effective way of stopping food crises, the lack of integrative approaches in responding to agricultural constraints has endangered productivity [151].”