30 percent of global food crop production has reached its limit

Science and Technology Daily 2013-12-23

according to a recent report in the British journal Nature Communications, about 30% of the world's food crops, including rice and wheat, may have reached their limit. Recent data show that the yield of food crops has stabilized, and even a sharp downward trend.

Forecasting future food production can help ensure global food security. But past analyses have been based on the fact that production has only increased but not decreased, a situation that has proven impossible.

For a long time, the mainstream methods used by scientists to predict future food crop yields and their ability to meet global food needs have been based on historical trends. However, in the past, many of the production increases have relied on innovative technologies, and some innovative technologies are only one-off. In view of this, most forecasts are too optimistic.

Professor Kenneth Kasman of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and his research team found a worrying situation after analyzing the production of grains, oil, sugar, fiber, beans, tubers, roots, rice, wheat and corn in the world's largest grain producer. Their latest data show that many over-grown regions of the world, including eastern Asia, northwestern Europe and the United States, have either reduced or reached saturation in their main grain production recently.

According to the research team's calculations, the production stagnation will affect about 33% of the world's rice producing countries and 27% of the world's wheat producing countries. What is more, this reduction will still occur after the country has made large investments in agricultural research, development, education and infrastructure, which indicates that the production potential of many planting areas may have reached the limit. The Nature paper shows that although China's wheat production has remained unchanged, corn production has fallen by 64% in the past 10 years.

The authors of the Nature paper warn that to further maintain food production, different factors of crop production must be fine-tuned, but this is often difficult to achieve, especially when farmers need to consider the associated costs, labor demand, risks and environmental impacts.

Man of Feeding