Impacts and economic costs of climate change on Mexican agriculture

Abstract

This study quantifies the impacts of climate change on yields and the corresponding economic losses in six relevant crops that account for 65% of the harvested area in Mexico and are highly relevant in terms of consumption and economic value. The results show that crop yields could decrease considerably during this century, especially in the rainfed management system. Under a high-emission scenario, large reductions in yields are expected by the end of this century for both rainfed and irrigated management systems of maize (42%, 31.4%), rice (51.4%, 41.3%), sorghum (41.1%, 36.6%), soybean (59.1%, 44.9%), wheat (23.3%, 20.0%), and rainfed sugarcane (11.7%). At the national level, the present value of losses in the selected crops amounts to $37,934 million dollars, which represents about twice the current total national agricultural production of Mexico. Rainfed agriculture represents about 69% of these losses and reductions in maize yields account for almost 70% of the total losses. States such as Veracruz, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas, and Jalisco represent half of the total economic losses. However, about 16% of the aggregated losses occur in states with high levels of poverty and subsistence farming like Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Guerrero. Climate change will significantly increase the risks that already vulnerable subsistence farmers’ face in the present. Although ambitious mitigation efforts can reduce the estimated impacts in most of the crops, residual damages are considerable, and the prompt implementation adaptation strategies is required.

Model emulators for the assessment of regional impacts and risks of climate change: A case study of rainfed maize production in Mexico

“…It is shown that under the baseline scenario (SSP370), rainfed maize yields could decrease at least 40% for 11 states of the country and up to 60%-80% in some regions by the end of the century. These results are consistent with the range of yield reductions reported in Estrada et al (2022), which analyzes yield changes of the EPIC model under the RCP8.5 and RCP2.6 scenarios Frontiers in Environmental Science frontiersin.org for rainfed maize in Mexico. The probabilities of exceeding a userdefined risk threshold of −30% reduction in rainfed maize yields are estimated and the areas with higher risks are identified.…”

“…Under an inaction scenario (SSP370) the present value of the losses in rainfed maize yields amounts to $130,000 million pesos, with much of these losses occurring in Chiapas, Jalisco, Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Guerrero. As expected, these losses are lower than those reported by Estrada et al (2022) for a higher emissions scenario (RCP8.5). However, these estimates are consistent with what could be expected for the SSP370, and a similar geographical distribution of losses is shown.…”

“…For calculating the economic losses, the following steps were carried out. First, because modelled and observed yields are not directly comparable (Rosenzweig et al, 2014) the change in modelled yields is applied to observed yields as follows (see Estrada et al, 2022):…”

Effects of floral resources on honey bee populations in Mexico: Using dietary metabarcoding to examine landscape quality in agroecosystems

“…Climate change can impact honey bee colonies negatively and/or positively, but in tropical regions, climate change has the potential to reduce honey yields by almost half (Delgado et al., 2012 ). Climate change models predict that parts of Mexico will experience more frequent droughts and a rise in temperature in the future (Estrada et al., 2022 ). Lack of rainfall would reduce plant bloom and survival, which would negatively impact honey yields but also reduce colony buildup and reproduction (Frazier et al., 2024 ).…”

Ecological Benefits and Plant Landscape Creation in Urban Parks: A Study of Nanhu Park, Hefei, China

“…Global climate change has brought on serious ecological challenges [1][2][3], and researchers have mainly elaborated on the current problems from various aspects such as nature (plant growth [4,5], land desertification [6,7]), national economy [8,9], agriculture [10][11][12]), and society (policy guidelines [13,14], urban construction [15,16], human health [17][18][19][20]). To cope with climate change and alleviate the deterioration of the environment, China has incorporated the "dual-carbon" policy into the construction of ecological civilization and the "14th Five-Year Plan" [21,22] to respond to the transformation and upgradation of contemporary society.…”