Impact of climate change on global agricultural markets under different shared socioeconomic pathways

This analysis quantifies changesin global agricultural markets for maize, rice, soybeans, and wheat due to yield changes triggered by climate change. The scenarios include four representative concentration pathways (RCP), five global climate models, three shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) capturing differences in population levels and economic growth, and enhanced CO2-fertilization. Yield projections incorporate the influence of SSPs on nitrogen application and agricultural technology. Depending on the SSP and comparing the RCP8.5 ensemble yields (with CO2-fertilization) to a no climate change scenario in 2050, price increases for maize (61.3%-80.9%), soybeans (36.7%-51.7%), and wheat (5.4%-11.1%) are observed. Large wheat producers in temperate regions expand wheat production under climate change. Rice benefits from CO2 fertilization resulting in a relatively uniform price decrease across scenarios of 19.5%-19.9%. Cropland expansion between 2015 and 2050 is lowest for the high economic growth scenario. Depending on the crop and region, there are significant reductions in production especially for maize. Absolute changes in trade patterns are most pronounced for wheat and least for rice. Using trade as a means to dampen the negative welfare effects of climate change will be important and so is economic growth.