Abstract: Our understanding of climate impacts and adaptations on crop growth and productivity can be accelerated by analyzing historical data over the past few decades. We used crop trial and climate data from 1981 to 2009 at 34 national agro-meteorological stations in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain (HHHP) of China to investigate the impacts of climate factors during different growth stages on the growth and yields of winter wheat, accounting for the adaptations such as shifts in sowing dates, cultivars, and agronomic management. Maximum (T-max) and minimum temperature (T-min) during the growth period of winter wheat increased significantly, by 0.4 and 0.6 degrees C/decade, respectively, from 1981 to 2009, while solar radiation decreased significantly by 0.2 MJ/m(2)/day and precipitation did not change significantly. The trends in climate shifted wheat phenology significantly at 21 stations and affected wheat yields significantly at five stations. The impacts of T-max and T-min differed in different growth stages of winter wheat. Across the stations, during 1981-2009, wheat yields increased on average by 14.5% with increasing trends in T-min over the whole growth period, which reduced frost damage, however, decreased by 3.0% with the decreasing trends in solar radiation. Trends in Tmax and precipitation had comparatively smaller impacts on wheat yields. From 1981 to 2009, climate trends were associated with a <= 30% (or <= 1.0% per year) wheat yield increase at 23 stations in eastern and southern parts of HHHP; however with a <= 30% (or <= 1.0% per year) reduction at 11 other stations, mainly in western part of HHHP. We also found that wheat reproductive growth duration increased due to shifts in cultivars and flowering date, and the duration was significantly and positively correlated with wheat yield. This study highlights the different impacts of T-max and T-min in different growth stages of winter wheat, as well as the importance of management (e.g. shift of sowing date) and cultivars shift in adapting to climate change in the major wheat production region. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Abstract: Recent studies assessing plausible futures for agricultural markets and global food security have had contradictory outcomes. To advance our understanding of the sources of the differences, 10 global economic models that produce long-term scenarios were asked to compare a reference scenario with alternate socioeconomic, climate change, and bioenergy scenarios using a common set of key drivers. Several key conclusions emerge from this exercise: First, for a comparison of scenario results to be meaningful, a careful analysis of the interpretation of the relevant model variables is essential. For instance, the use of real world commodity prices differs widely across models, and comparing the prices without accounting for their different meanings can lead to misleading results. Second, results suggest that, once some key assumptions are harmonized, the variability in general trends across models declines but remains important. For example, given the common assumptions of the reference scenario, models show average annual rates of changes of real global producer prices for agricultural products on average ranging between -0.4% and +0.7% between the 2005 base year and 2050. This compares to an average decline of real agricultural prices of 4% p.a. between the 1960s and the 2000s. Several other common trends are shown, for example, relating to key global growth areas for agricultural production and consumption. Third, differences in basic model parameters such as income and price elasticities, sometimes hidden in the way market behavior is modeled, result in significant differences in the details. Fourth, the analysis shows that agro-economic modelers aiming to inform the agricultural and development policy debate require better data and analysis on both economic behavior and biophysical drivers. More interdisciplinary modeling efforts are required to cross-fertilize analyses at different scales.