The need to balance yield increases with environmental sustainability in food production

The gap

Evidence profile

Sourced from the stated research gap and stated challenges and future-work section and abstract of the source papers, classified as general, drawn from work published between 2024 and 2026, spanning 5 journals. Those papers have been cited 380 times in total.

Supporting evidence — 7 representative gaps

• Food self-sufficiency targets reshape climate trade-offs and synergies in China’s food system (2026) · Environmental Research Letters · doi

  The climate compatibility of China's food self-sufficiency targets is uncertain. There is a need to quantify the impacts of self-sufficiency targets on domestic and trade-embodied GHG emissions. The study addresses this gap by employing a food system integrated assessment model.

  generalstated research gapevidence 5/5
  Keywords: climate compatibility china food self-sufficiency targets uncertain there
• Diversifying crop rotation increases food production, reduces net greenhouse gas emissions and improves soil health (2024) · Nature Communications · cited 377× · doi

  There is a need to balance yield increases with environmental sustainability in food production. Conventional food production systems have environmental drawbacks. Diversifying crop rotation can potentially address these challenges.

  generalstated research gapevidence 5/5
  Keywords: there need balance yield increases environmental sustainability food
• Ethephon as a bloom-delaying agent for frost-sensitive tree crop flowers at risk from a changing climate (2026) · BMC Plant Biology · doi

  Climate change is directly threatening crop production and food security. Extreme weather events and changes in abiotic conditions are aggravating production losses. Global fruit and vegetable production must increase by 50 to 150% by 2050 to meet the dietary needs of 10 billion people.

  generalstated challengesevidence 5/5
  Keywords: climate change directly threatening crop production food security
• Food self-sufficiency targets reshape climate trade-offs and synergies in China’s food system (2026) · Environmental Research Letters · doi

  The study faces the challenge of quantifying the climate impact of food systems. The model needs to account for various factors, including agricultural nutrient cycling and associated emissions. The study relies on a single model (GLOBIOM-China) for scenario analysis, which may limit the accuracy of the results.

  generalstated challengesevidence 5/5
  Keywords: study faces challenge quantifying climate impact food systems
• A hybrid Granger TCN framework for generating climate analogues and determining the future of agricultural practices (2026) · Scientific Reports · doi

  Climate change is becoming a major contributor to the increasing economic crisis and a key factor for shortage of product supply-demand across the globe. The study aims to understand the effect of projection of climate change on the agriculture industry.

  generalstated research gapevidence 5/5
  Keywords: climate change becoming major contributor increasing economic crisis
• Food self-sufficiency targets reshape climate trade-offs and synergies in China’s food system (2026) · Environmental Research Letters · doi

  Further research is needed to explore the impacts of climate change on food systems. The study's findings suggest that a combined pathway of self-sufficiency and production efficiency gains can support both food security and climate mitigation goals, which could be explored in future research. The development of more advanced models that account for climate change-induced yield shocks could improve the accuracy of scenario analysis.

  generalfuture-work sectionevidence 4/5
  Keywords: further research needed explore impacts climate change food
• Aggravation of global maize yield loss risk under various hot and dry scenarios using multiple types of prediction approaches (2024) · International Journal of Climatology · cited 3× · doi

  Abstract High temperature and drought are widely known to cause a reduction of crop yield, but the simultaneously occurring risks in major producing countries and the associated uncertainty across various climate change scenarios remain unclear at the global scale.

  generalabstractevidence 4/5
  Keywords: abstract high temperature drought widely known cause reduction crop yield simultaneously occurring risks major producing

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