Harvests under pressure

29 July 2025, by Franziska Neigenfind

Photo: Kerstin Jantke

Around the world, harvests are at risk: As global warming worsens, there is a growing risk of several breadbaskets – key agricultural regions – being struck by heatwaves simultaneously.

A team led by Dr. Leonard Borchert has investigated how frequent and intense these extreme events will likely be in the future. “If the global mean temperature rises by 1.5 degrees, by 2100 at least three central cultivation areas for maize will likely suffer extreme heat every other year. If it rises by two degrees or more, this could happen every year,” says Borchert. The Global South will be hardest-hit: In northern Namibia, maize, beans and millet farming are already jeopardized. By the end of the century, the situation will most likely be worse – with serious consequences, as the people living there are chiefly subsistence farmers and have little or no reserves or other sources of income.

Simultaneous extreme events in multiple regions not only threaten the supply of vital foods at the local level; they also affect global markets and supply chains. Accordingly, the experts call for taking immediate, effective climate action. At the same time, regions must implement targeted adaptation measures – like switching to more heat-resistant crop species and better irrigation systems to mitigate the potentially devastating impacts.

The article was published in the CLICCS Quarterly magazine, the research news from the Cluster of Excellence "Climate, Climatic Change, and Society".