How sustainable is sustainable intensification? Assessing yield gaps at field and farm level across the globe

Silva, João Vasco; Reidsma, P.; Baudron, Frédéric; Ittersum, M.K. van

doi:10.1016/j.gfs.2021.100552

Cited by 34 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…Work in a systems perspective at the interface of these disciplines is needed for challenges from climate change to agriculture [ 30 , 31 ] and the resultant obligation to create a productive, resilient, and proactive “climate-smart agriculture” system [ 32 ]. The critical engagement of researchers in education regarding new metrics of what determines successful landscape management (e.g., regenerative agriculture, or sustainable intensification) is essential to both guide effective solutions and clearly communicate them to the public [ 33 , 34 ]. Thus, in this essay, I bring attention to NbCS in a biological engineering context, highlighting research needs, new application areas, methods of education, and attention to diversity, inclusion, and equity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review: biological engineering for nature-based climate solutions

Runkle

2022

J Biol Eng

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Nature-based Climate Solutions are landscape stewardship techniques to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase soil or biomass carbon sequestration. These mitigation approaches to climate change present an opportunity to supplement energy sector decarbonization and provide co-benefits in terms of ecosystem services and landscape productivity. The biological engineering profession must be involved in the research and implementation of these solutions—developing new tools to aid in decision-making, methods to optimize across different objectives, and new messaging frameworks to assist in prioritizing among different options. Furthermore, the biological engineering curriculum should be redesigned to reflect the needs of carbon-based landscape management. While doing so, the biological engineering community has an opportunity to embed justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion within both the classroom and the profession. Together these transformations will enhance our capacity to use sustainable landscape management as an active tool to mitigate the risks of climate change.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review: biological engineering for nature-based climate solutions

Runkle

2022

J Biol Eng

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“…Quantitative studies that analyze crop yield trends [17,26,27], crop yield gaps [7,28,29] and crop yield potentials [30,31] in the ECA have attracted wide attention and achieved many research findings, but empirical studies that assess the convergence of crop yield in the ECA are presently still rare. This study aimed to address the above questions with an emphasis on cereal yield in the ECA from 1991 to 2020.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Evolutionary Trends and Convergence of Cereal Yield in Europe and Central Asia

Sun

2022

Agriculture

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The state of food security in the world, including that of Europe and Central Asia (ECA), was highlighted in 2020 by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the fact that the food security status of millions of people in ECA, particularly the most vulnerable and those living in fragile contexts, would deteriorate if swift action was not taken as soon as possible became apparent. Improving cereal yield is the key for the ECA to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 2.1 to end hunger by 2030. Impressive cereal yield growth has been witnessed within the ECA from 1991 to 2020, but there is still significant variation across the five sub-regions. This paper aimed to analyze the evolutionary trends and convergence of cereal yield in countries of the ECA from 1991 to 2020 for four major cereals: wheat, maize, barley and oats. The findings show that there is strong evidence of σ-convergence and absolute and conditional β-convergence for cereal yield in the ECA, which indicates that countries with low yield in the initial stages have totally experienced higher growth rate, and yield in countries farther away from the steady-state have to have faster growth rate to converge to the steady-state. The presence of club convergence is also identified in terms of geographic location and income level, simultaneously. Therefore, cereal yield in the ECA has converged to the whole and to different groups at the same time, which provides some evidence of agricultural technology spillover effect in the region.

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“…Sustainable intensification of agriculture aims to increase food production without exacerbating environmental impacts, thereby avoiding the need to further expand agriculture into natural ecosystems to satisfy growing market demand 1,2 . A key metric for intensification is the crop yield gap, which is the fractional difference between the potential yield in a region under irrigated or rainfed conditions and the average yield actually achieved by farmers 1,3 . The yield gap depends on numerous factors including crop genotype, nutrient deficiency, water stress, solar radiation, growing season temperatures, management factors (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The yield gap depends on numerous factors including crop genotype, nutrient deficiency, water stress, solar radiation, growing season temperatures, management factors (e.g. reliance on manual labour) and the effects of weeds, pests and diseases 1,3,4 . Yield gaps shrink with economic development, as wealthier countries are able to invest more in technology, training, fertilizer and crop protection, but tend toward 20% as further improvements become economically and ecologically undesirable 5 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Expert opinion suggests that around one fifth to one third of crop production is lost to pests and diseases globally 6 , but little is known about how these losses vary in time and space. Observed losses are potential losses reduced by expenditure on measures like weeding, disease-resistant seed, and agrochemical herbicides, pesticides and fungicides 1,7,8 . Here, we focus on the impacts of fungal diseases.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Climate change, biotic yield gaps and disease pressure in cereal crops

Raza

Bebber

2022

Preprint

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Plant diseases are major causes of crop yield losses and exert a financial burden via expenditure on disease control. The magnitude of these burdens depends on biological, environmental and management factors, but this variation is poorly understood. Here we model the effects of weather on potential yield losses due to fungal plant pathogens (the biotic yield gap, Ygb) using experimental trials of fungicide-treated and untreated cereal crops in the UK, and project future Ygb under climate change. We find that Ygb varies between 10 and 20 % of fungicide-treated yields depending on crop, and increases under warmer winter and wetter spring conditions. Ygb will increase for winter wheat and winter barley under climate change, while declining for spring crops because drier summers offset the effects of warmer winters. Potential disease impacts are comparable in magnitude to the effects of suboptimal weather and crop varieties.

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How sustainable is sustainable intensification? Assessing yield gaps at field and farm level across the globe

Cited by 34 publications

References 69 publications

Review: biological engineering for nature-based climate solutions

Review: biological engineering for nature-based climate solutions

The Evolutionary Trends and Convergence of Cereal Yield in Europe and Central Asia

Climate change, biotic yield gaps and disease pressure in cereal crops

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