Addressing global hotspots of drought-related crop production losses.
Tuninetti M, Davis KF
Climate Adaptation
Drought hotspots in the central US, eastern Brazil, and South Asia are already quietly shrinking the harvests of staple grains — and the gap between what's grown and what's lost is widening every season as climate patterns shift.
Researchers looked at 17 major food crops across the entire planet and calculated how badly extreme dry spells cut into harvests. They found that in the worst drought years, farmers lose around 10% of rain-fed crops globally — that's billions of meals gone. The good news is that expanding irrigation thoughtfully and swapping in more drought-resilient grains like millet and sorghum in the most vulnerable places could prevent nearly two-thirds of those losses.
Key Findings
Extreme drought conditions reduce global rainfed crop production by ~10.1% and irrigated production by ~6.8%, representing enough calories to feed 2.1 billion people.
Drought hotspots are concentrated in the central US, eastern Brazil, the Mediterranean region, and South Asia.
Sustainable irrigation expansion and targeted crop switching for monsoon cereals (rice, maize, millet, sorghum) could avoid 62% of rainfed losses while boosting median production by 14%.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists mapped where drought hits crops hardest worldwide, finding that extreme dry conditions cost the world enough food to feed 2.1 billion people. Smarter irrigation and switching to drought-tolerant crops in the worst-affected regions could recover most of those losses.
Abstract Preview
Meeting future food demand requires transforming food systems to simultaneously increase production, reduce environmental impacts, and adapt to climate change. As climate variability increasingly a...
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Millets are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most millets belong to the tribe Paniceae.