Effect of Climate Change and Research on Crop Yield Growth

Increasing agricultural technical productivity is an important means to meet growing future food demands and overcome some of the effects of climate change. In the US total production has increased for more than 100 years due to intensification through increased land productivity and extensification through cultivated land expansion. However, there is limited land for additional extensification and thus future growth will depend more on intensification as has recent growth. In the recent past rates of productivity expansion in the form of crop yield growth have fallen and in many cases so has investment in productivity enhancing research. Here we investigate possible reasons for the falling rates using US data mainly focusing on investment levels and changes in climate. Our investigation shows that while Agricultural R&D (AGRD) directly improves productivity, climate change has had a negative impact and also interacts to reduce the AGRD contribution. This raises a need for an increase in AGRD to overcome climate change effects both maintaining and increasing growth in crop yields