Are Agriculture Trends Leading to Increased Vulnerability of Global Food Security?

Sunday, 15 February 2015: 8:30 AM-11:30 AM
Room LL20A (San Jose Convention Center)
James Gerber, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN
Future demand for crops will be met by a combination of increasing yields (intensification) and cultivating new lands (extensification.) These trends can lead to increasing concentration of key grains into bread-baskets, which increases systemic risk to the food system. Using recently-developed historical maps of yield and harvested area for several major crops, we compare this enhanced risk to changes in vulnerability due to weather events, market effects, and demographic trends.