Shifting cultivation geographies in the Central and Eastern US

Climate change is projected to transform agricultural systems around the globe. Though climate strongly influences where and how farmers cultivate, millennia of agricultural innovation have expanded cultivation geographies far beyond what sun, soil, and water alone can support. Evaluating how climate interacts with human activity to shape cultivation possibilities for farmers is vital to understanding the impacts of climate change on agriculture. I assess how climate interacts with agricultural activity to shape the cultivation geographies of six major crops: corn, soy, wheat, cotton, hay and alfalfa. For each crop, I model biophysical suitability, or the probability of a crop's occurrence given only biophysical conditions, and agricultural suitability, or the probability of a crops occurrence given biophysical conditions as well as agricultural inputs, farm resources, and farm(er) characteristics. Though biophysical conditions strongly shape cultivation geographies, agricultural activity-particularly the use of crop insurance and agricultural inputs-amplifies and expands the cultivation geographies of these major crops, often into regions biophysically unsuited to their cultivation. I project biophysically driven shifts in cultivation geographies to 2100 under low, moderate, and high emissions scenarios and find that these geographies will shift strongly north, with the Corn Belt becoming unsuitable to the cultivation of corn by 2100. These results indicate that significant agricultural adaptation will be necessary and inevitable in the Central and Eastern U.S.

Automated summary

Climate change is projected to transform agricultural systems globally. Understanding how climate interacts with human activity to shape cultivation possibilities is crucial for assessing the impacts of climate change on agriculture. This study models the cultivation geographies of six major crops and finds that agricultural activities, such as the use of crop insurance and inputs, amplify and expand cultivation geographies, even into regions unsuited for cultivation. The projected shifts in cultivation geographies due to climate change indicate significant agricultural adaptation will be necessary, particularly in the Central and Eastern U.S.