What do we know about the future of food systems in relation to climate change?

Climate change poses major challenges to agriculture and food systems, but the latest foresight modeling suggests impacts may be more nuanced than previously thought. For example, economic feedback mechanisms affect global average impacts of climate change on yields and important differences arise between the various greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions scenarios and climate models.

More importantly, global averages mask wide diversity in impacts across geographies, commodities, and people’s ability to adapt.

In addition to long-term impacts of changes in global averages, increasing climate variability is likely to lead to a higher frequency of production shocks from adverse climate events.

Climate change is expected to lower GDP and therefore increase the number of food-insecure households and increase poverty. It may also slow growth of agricultural productivity, adversely impacting rural households.

Agriculture and food systems (including diets, energy use, and land use change) play a key role in global emissions and strategies to reach net zero, but these strategies are at cross purposes with meeting food needs under climate change and rising demand for food globally. Foresight modeling can help decision-makers evaluate these trade-offs and ameliorate particularly adverse impacts.