New data shows that crops like wheat, coffee, beans & cassava could lose half of the best land for growing them by 2100 | FAO News

Rome – The Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has upgraded its innovative ABC-Map geospatial app with a new indicator which shows that several major crops including wheat, coffee, beans, cassava, & plantain could lose half their best or optimally suitable land by 2100.

Designed for policymakers, technicians, & project designers, the Adaptation, Biodiversity & Carbon Mapping Tool (“ABC-Map”) offers an initial screening of the climate-related risks, essential biodiversity indicators, & the carbon reduction potential of a selected project. It is an open-source satellite imagery app, based on Google Earth Engine, with information from global datasets.

Following its upgrade, ABC Map now features a new indicator, providing information on the suitability of major crops in evolving climate scenarios to the end of the century. FAO Senior Natural Resources (Climate Change) Officer Martial Bernoux says the new information could help ensure our capacity to cope with climate change & its impacts in the long term.

“Given the increasingly erratic weather & extreme events, including droughts, extreme heat & floods, farmers, policymakers, & technicians need to know if the crops, investments or projects they are considering will work or if they need to adjust & consider other crops or more adaptation measures instead,” Bernoux says. “Our ABC-Map tool can now better assist them with these considerations, further reinforcing climate resilience.”

Concerning data

The new indicator, developed by FAO, incorporates data from a study by French fintech start-up Finres, commissioned by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) & funded by the French Development Agency (AFD). The study, “Have crops already reached peak suitability: assessing global climatic suitability decreases for crop cultivation”, uses a new method to assess crop suitability in varied climate scenarios. It concludes that five out of nine major staple & cash crops—including wheat, coffee, beans, cassava, & plantain—are already losing optimal growing conditions, & some could lose half their optimal suitable land by 2100.

In particular, the study’s researchers suggest that coffee production in some of the major coffee-growing regionscould decline sharply by 2100. They say beans & wheat could experience significant losses, especially in regions such as North America & Europe. Maize & rice, however, could initially find more suitable areas for cultivation, the researchers suggest, but this situation could reverse by the end of the century under high-emission scenarios.

How does it work?

The ABC-Map geospatial app features indicators in three sections: adaptation, biodiversity, & carbon. This new indicator expands the scope of the adaptation section, which previously displayed only information on past trends in a given area, including past temperature & rainfall. Now, the new indicator also adds information on future trends.

A user inputs a location, then selects a crop from 30 options, including coffee, maize & wheat. The tool then displays the suitability of the selected crops in that area, for time periods stretching to 2100, providing a crop suitability score for two different climate emission scenarios. Also planned for this year is an indicator with information on livestock heat stress & another for crop water requirements, which would estimate expected rainfall & potential irrigation needs.

Strengthening national capacity

ABC-Map, launched in 2024,  is one of the technical tools in the COP28 Agriculture, Food & Climate National Action Toolkit, helping governments to develop & implement policy measures on climate action & agrifood system transformation. It was launched last year during an expert panel on the Food & Agriculture for Sustainable Transformation (FAST) Partnership, at the Global Forum for Food & Agriculture in Berlin, Germany.  

The tool helps users better understand the synergies & trade-offs among the three pressing & interlinked challenges of climate change mitigation, adaptation & countering biodiversity loss in the context of safeguarding agriculture & food security. It promotes holistic environmental actions in agriculture & with its latest upgrade, ABC-Map will further boost FAO’s support to countries to fulfill their obligations under the three Rio Conventions & strengthen their capacity to assess & confront climate related shocks & impacts.