1. Home
  2. Hubs: tools and knowledge
  3. Extreme Heat Portal

Heat and agriculture

Extreme heat is an increasingly significant threat to food security, disrupting food production, processing, storage, distribution, and access across local, national, and global food systems.

Rising temperatures, prolonged heatwaves, and sustained heatwaves can reduce crop yields, stress livestock, degrade soil moisture, and strain water resources, with cascading impacts along food supply chains. See below for the latest selections related to extreme heat's impact on agriculture.

Faced with extreme heat, farmers are turning to the forest for solutions.
Uploaded on
Cover
Documents and publications
Advancing climate-smart financial solutions for smallholder farmers: Lessons from the CGIAR Climate Resilience Initiative

The CGIAR Research Initiative on Climate Resilience has developed and implemented a suite of innovative instruments. This brief examines the potential of these bundled financial solutions in enhancing smallholder farmers' resilience to climate risks.

Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)
Update
As marine heatwaves intensify, Bali’s fishers hunt far and wide

Bali’s fishers struggle with declining stock as marine heatwaves intensify.

Context
A traffic officer drinks water during a hot day in Kolkata, India
Research briefs
Five ways that climate change threatens human health

The Lancet Countdown report highlights "record-breaking threats" people's health face as a consequence of climate change. Major risks include negative effects on food security, spread of diseases, ecosystems, infrastructure and the economy.

Conversation Media Group, the
Cover
Documents and publications
Compound and cascading droughts and heatwaves decrease maize yields by nearly half in Sinaloa, Mexico

The study evaluates the impact of droughts and heatwaves both as singly and as compound and cascading on maize yield in Sinaloa Mexico from 1990 to 2022, using the WOFOST crop model.

npj Natural Hazards (Nature)
The hands of a cocoa farmer use pruning shears to cut the cocoa pods from the cacao tree.
Research briefs
Food policy in a warming world

Governments often seek to protect domestic consumers following climate shocks to agricultural production, but these policies may exacerbate global losses.

VoxDev/ CEPR
Woman walking through the flooded street in Nigeria with a yellow rain cape.
Update
Four ways Africa is already seeing the effects of climate change – and what can be done about it

The Conversation Africa has been tracking the impact of climate change on the African continent. These selected reads shed light on where some of these biggest climate impacts are already being felt and offer insights into how these can be mitigated.

Conversation Media Group, the
Update
Farmworkers in the US cultivate their own heat safety standards

While regulations to protect agricultural workers from the heat have been held up by political wrangling, Gonzalo and colleagues have spearheaded an alternate strategy. They seek to instead appeal directly to consumers and brands.

Context
Eight farmers from Bangladesh walking across a rice field carrying big baskets on their heads and shoulders.
Update
From mangoes to poultry, heatwave aftermath leaves Bangladesh food security in jeopardy

Severe heat in Bangladesh has exposed critical food security challenges, affecting everything from fruit production to paddy and poultry farming.

Dialogue Earth
Uploaded on