Abstract Climate change threatens global food systems1, but the extent to which adaptation will reduce losses remains unknown and controversial2. Even within the well-studied context of US agriculture, some analyses argue that adaptation will be widespread and climate damages small3,4, whereas others conclude that adaptation will be limited and losses severe5,6. Scenario-based analyses indicate that adaptation should have notable consequences on global agricultural productivity7,8,9, but there has been no systematic study of how extensively real-world producers actually adapt at the global scale. Here we empirically estimate the impact of global producer adaptations using longitudinal data on six staple crops spanning 12,658 regions, capturing two-thirds of global crop calories. We estimate that global production declines 5.5 × 1014 kcal annually per 1 °C global mean surface temperature (GMST) rise (120 kcal per person per day or 4.4% of recommended consumption per 1 °C; P < 0.001). We project that adaptation and income growth alleviate 23% of global losses in 2050 and 34% at the end of the century (6% and 12%, respectively; moderate-emissions scenario), but substantial residual losses remain for all staples except rice. In contrast to analyses of other outcomes that project the greatest damages to the global poor10,11, we find that global impacts are dominated by losses to modern-day breadbaskets with favourable climates and limited present adaptation, although losses in low-income regions losses are also substantial. These results indicate a scale of innovation, cropland expansion or further adaptation that might be necessary to ensure food security in a changing climate.

Wildy higher losses and worse than i would have suspected.

Maize Under a high-emissions scenario, our projected end-of-century maize yield losses are severe (about −40%) in the grain belt of the USA, Eastern China, Central Asia, Southern Africa and the Middle East (Fig. 2a, Extended Data Fig. 7a and Supplementary Figs. 10 and 11). Losses in South America and Central Africa are more moderate (about −15%), mitigated in part by high levels of precipitation and increasing long-run precipitation (Extended Data Fig. 3b). Impacts in Europe vary with latitude, from +10% gains in the north to −40% losses along the Mediterranean. Gains in theoretical yield potentials occur in many northern regions in which maize is not widely grown (Supplementary Fig. 7).

Soybean The spatial distribution of soybean yield impacts is similar in structure to maize, although magnitudes are accentuated (Fig. 2b, Extended Data Fig. 7b and Supplementary Figs. 10 and 11); for example, about −50% in the USA and about +20% in wet regions of Brazil under a high-emissions scenario.

Rice High-emissions rice yield impacts are mixed in India and Southeast Asia, which lead global rice production, with small gains and losses throughout these regions. This regional result is broadly consistent with earlier work1. In the remaining rice-growing regions, central estimates are generally negative, with magnitudes in Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and Central Asia exceeding −50% (Fig. 2c, Extended Data Fig. 7c and Supplementary Figs. 10 and 11).

Wheat Wheat losses are notably consistent across the main wheat-growing regions, with high-emissions yield losses of −15% to −25% in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Africa and South America and −30% to −40% in China, Russia, the USA and Canada (Fig. 2d, Extended Data Fig. 7d and Supplementary Figs. 10 and 11). There are notable exceptions to these global patterns: wheat-growing regions of Western China exhibit both gains and losses, whereas wheat-growing regions of Northern India exhibit some of the most severe projected losses across the globe.

Cassava Cassava is projected to have uniformly negative projected impacts in nearly all regions in which it is grown at present, with the largest losses in Sub-Saharan Africa (−40% on average under a high-emissions scenario). Although cassava does not make up a large portion of global agricultural revenues, it is an important subsistence crop in low-income and middle-income countries. Thus, these yield losses may be a substantial future threat to the nutritional intake of the global poor (Fig. 2e, Extended Data Fig. 7e and Supplementary Figs. 10 and 11).

Sorghum Sorghum losses are widespread in almost all of the main regions in which it is grown at present: North America (−40%), South Asia (including India) (−10%) and Sub-Saharan Africa (−25%). Projected gains emerge in Western Europe (+28%) and Northern China (+3%) (Fig. 2f, Extended Data Fig. 7f and Supplementary Figs. 10 and 11).