From Food Production to Food Security - Global Environmental ...

to higher greenhouse gas emissions which in turn exacerbate climate change (“climateforcing”). Such changes would in turn further undermine food production.Agronomy therefore faces two major challenges. The first is to help develop food productionsystems that both improve food supply in the face of climate change, while simultaneouslyreducing factors responsible for climate forcing (Figure 1). The second is to workmore effectively with a range of other disciplines to help deliver agronomic outputs bothbetter integrated within the overall context of food security and better tuned to the needs offood security policy formulation.Figure 1 Overarching research questions relating to climate change impacts, adaptations andfeedbacks.Agronomic research on the impacts of climate changeAdvances in crop breeding and agronomy have enabled increase in crop yields over the last 40years or so. In Europe, for instance, yields have increased steadily and approximately linearlyover the last 45 years (Figure 2), and in the USA, similarly, linear increases in maize, riceand wheat yields (61, 54 and 41 kg ha -1 year -1 , respectively) have been recorded over thelast 50 years (K. Cassman, pers comm).Figure 2 Observed wheat grain yields for selected countries in Europe (from Ewert et al., 2005).25