Agriculture

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Climate change poses a major challenge to U.S. agriculture, because of the critical dependence of the agricultural system on climate and because of the complex role agriculture plays in social and economic systems. Climate change has the potential to both positively and negatively affect the location, timing, and productivity of crop, livestock, and fishery systems at local, national, and global scales.

The U.S. produces nearly $330 billion per year in agricultural commodities.6 This productivity is vulnerable to direct impacts on crop and livestock development and yield from changing climate conditions and extreme weather events, and indirect impacts through increasing pressures from pests and pathogens. Climate change has the potential to both positively and negatively affect agricultural systems at local, national, and global scales. Climate change will also alter the stability of food supplies and create new food security challenges for the U.S. as the world seeks to feed nine billion people by 2050.

Crop Yields Decline under Higher Temperatures

The agricultural sector continually adapts through a variety of strategies that have allowed previous agricultural production to increase, as evidenced by the continued growth in production and efficiency across the United States. However, the magnitude of climate change projected for this century and beyond, particularly under higher emissions scenarios, will challenge the ability of the agriculture sector to continue to successfully adapt.