Producing more grain with lower environmental costs

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Abstract

Agriculture faces great challenges to ensure global food security by increasing yields while reducing environmental costs. Here we address this challenge by conducting a total of 153 site-year field experiments covering the main agro-ecological areas for rice, wheat and maize production in China. A set of integrated soil-crop system management practices based on a modern understanding of crop ecophysiology and soil biogeochemistry increases average yields for rice, wheat and maize from 7.2 million grams per hectare (Mg ha(-1)), 7.2 Mg ha(-1) and 10.5 Mg ha(-1) to 8.5 Mg ha(-1), 8.9 Mg ha(-1) and 14.2 Mg ha(-1), respectively, without any increase in nitrogen fertilizer. Model simulation and life-cycle assessment show that reactive nitrogen losses and greenhouse gas emissions are reduced substantially by integrated soil-crop system management. If farmers in China could achieve average grain yields equivalent to 80% of this treatment by 2030, over the same planting area as in 2012, total production of rice, wheat and maize in China would be more than enough to meet the demand for direct human consumption and a substantially increased demand for animal feed, while decreasing the environmental costs of intensive agriculture.

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Yield Trends Are Insufficient to Double Global Crop Production by 2050

Deepak Ray, Nathaniel D. Mueller, Paul C West … (2013)

Several studies have shown that global crop production needs to double by 2050 to meet the projected demands from rising population, diet shifts, and increasing biofuels consumption. Boosting crop yields to meet these rising demands, rather than clearing more land for agriculture has been highlighted as a preferred solution to meet this goal. However, we first need to understand how crop yields are changing globally, and whether we are on track to double production by 2050. Using ∼2.5 million agricultural statistics, collected for ∼13,500 political units across the world, we track four key global crops—maize, rice, wheat, and soybean—that currently produce nearly two-thirds of global agricultural calories. We find that yields in these top four crops are increasing at 1.6%, 1.0%, 0.9%, and 1.3% per year, non-compounding rates, respectively, which is less than the 2.4% per year rate required to double global production by 2050. At these rates global production in these crops would increase by ∼67%, ∼42%, ∼38%, and ∼55%, respectively, which is far below what is needed to meet projected demands in 2050. We present detailed maps to identify where rates must be increased to boost crop production and meet rising demands.

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Loss of plant species after chronic low-level nitrogen deposition to prairie grasslands.

Christopher M. Clark, David Tilman (2008)

Rates of atmospheric deposition of biologically active nitrogen (N) are two to seven times the pre-industrial rates in many developed nations because of combustion of fossil fuels and agricultural fertilization. They are expected to increase similarly over the next 50 years in industrializing nations of Asia and South America. Although the environmental impacts of high rates of nitrogen addition have been well studied, this is not so for the lower, chronic rates that characterize much of the globe. Here we present results of the first multi-decadal experiment to examine the impacts of chronic, experimental nitrogen addition as low as 10 kg N ha(-1) yr(-1) above ambient atmospheric nitrogen deposition (6 kg N ha(-1) yr(-1) at our site). This total input rate is comparable to terrestrial nitrogen deposition in many industrialized nations. We found that this chronic low-level nitrogen addition rate reduced plant species numbers by 17% relative to controls receiving ambient N deposition. Moreover, species numbers were reduced more per unit of added nitrogen at lower addition rates, suggesting that chronic but low-level nitrogen deposition may have a greater impact on diversity than previously thought. A second experiment showed that a decade after cessation of nitrogen addition, relative plant species number, although not species abundances, had recovered, demonstrating that some effects of nitrogen addition are reversible.