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With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Elodie Becquey

Elodie Becquey is a Senior Research Fellow in the Nutrition, Diets, and Health Unit, based in IFPRI’s West and Central Africa office in Senegal. She has over 15 years of research experience in diet, nutrition, and food security in Africa, including countries such as Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, and Tanzania.

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Since 1975, IFPRI’s research has been informing policies and development programs to improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods around the world.

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IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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Columbia University is a world-renowned university at the forefront of research and seeks to analyze and solve the prominent global issues. Columbia funds several research and coordination teams to conduct integrated assessments of climate, crop, and economic impacts of variable and changing climate. Columbia engages the best thinkers in agriculture from all over the globe to contribute to their critical research.

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Publications

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Journal Article

Climate variability and simultaneous breadbasket yield shocks as observed in long-term yield records

2023Anderson, Weston; Baethgen, Walter; Capitanio, Fabian; Ciais, Philippe; Cook, Benjamin I.; You, Liangzhi
Details

Climate variability and simultaneous breadbasket yield shocks as observed in long-term yield records

That climate variability and change can potentially force multiple simultaneous breadbasket crop yield shocks has been established. But research quantifying the mechanisms behind such simultaneous shocks has been constrained by short records of crop yields. Here we compile a dataset of subnational crop yields in 25 countries dating back to 1900 to study the frequency and trends in multiple breadbasket yield shocks and how large-scale climate anomalies on interannual timescales have affected multiple breadbasket yield shocks over the last century. We find that major simultaneous breadbasket yield shocks have occurred in at least three, four, or five of nine breadbaskets 10.3%, 2.3% and 1.1% of the time for maize and 18.4%, 4.6% and 2.3% of the time for wheat. Furthermore, we find that multiple breadbasket yield shocks decreased in frequency even as those breadbaskets experience increasingly frequent climate-related shocks. For both maize and wheat breadbaskets, there were fewer simultaneous yield shocks during the 1975–2017 time period as compared to 1931–1975. Finally, we find that interannual modes of climate variability – such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) – have all affected the relative probability of simultaneous yield shocks in pairs of breadbaskets by up to 20–40% in both maize and wheat breadbaskets. While past literature has focused on the effects of ENSO, we find that at the global scale the NAO affects the overall number of wheat yield shocks most strongly despite only affecting northern hemisphere breadbaskets.

Year published

2023

Authors

Anderson, Weston; Baethgen, Walter; Capitanio, Fabian; Ciais, Philippe; Cook, Benjamin I.; You, Liangzhi

Citation

Anderson, Weston; Baethgen, Walter; Capitanio, Fabian; Ciais, Philippe; Cook, Benjamin I.; You, Liangzhi; et al. 2023. Climate variability and simultaneous breadbasket yield shocks as observed in long-term yield records. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 331(15 March 2023): 109321. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2023.109321

Country/Region

India

Keywords

Southern Asia; Climate Variability; Climate Change; Bread; Yields; Shock; Maize; Wheat; El Niño; Oscillatory Flow; North Atlantic; Indian Ocean

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2023.109321 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

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Journal Article

Synchronous crop failures and climate-forced production variability

2019Anderson, W. B.; Seager, R.; Baethgen, W.; Cane, M.; You, Liangzhi
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Synchronous crop failures and climate-forced production variability

Large-scale modes of climate variability can force widespread crop yield anomalies and are therefore often presented as a risk to food security. We quantify how modes of climate variability contribute to crop production variance. We find that the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), tropical Atlantic variability (TAV), and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) together account for 18, 7, and 6% of globally aggregated maize, soybean, and wheat production variability, respectively. The lower fractions of global-scale soybean and wheat production variability result from substantial but offsetting climate-forced production anomalies. All climate modes are important in at least one region studied. In 1983, ENSO, the only mode capable of forcing globally synchronous crop failures, was responsible for the largest synchronous crop failure in the modern historical record. Our results provide the basis for monitoring, and potentially predicting, simultaneous crop failures.

Year published

2019

Authors

Anderson, W. B.; Seager, R.; Baethgen, W.; Cane, M.; You, Liangzhi

Citation

Anderson, W. B.; Seager, R.; Baethgen, W.; Cane, M.; and You, Liangzhi. 2019. Synchronous crop failures and climate-forced production variability. Science Advances 5(7): eaaw1976. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw1976

Country/Region

India

Keywords

Southern Asia; Spatial Data; Agricultural Production; Climate; Crop Production; Crop Losses; Climate Change

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw1976 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

Events

Science Forum 2018
IFPRI at External Event

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October 10 to 12, 2018

Science Forum 2018

IFPRI researchers and their case studies contribute to discussions on substantial interactions between the Sustainable Development Goals, the role of agricultural research in augmenting synergies, and managing trade-offs.