Mexico Perennial Crops in a Changing Climate

Abstract:

Diversity is a key element of food security; yet, research on the impacts of climate change on food security around the world has, so far, centred on the main food grains. In Mexico in particular, even though perennials represent more than half of the most economically valuable crops for export, little research has been done about them (especially at the national scale and with a high spatial resolution). However, focusing on perennials is important because they could absorb climate impacts differently from annual crops as they are usually planted for more than 20 years. Moreover, the impact of climate variability on perennial crops will potentially impact not only Mexico’s food security, but that of all the countries that rely on Mexico’s exports.

In this work, we investigate the sensitivity of perennial crop yields to historical temperature extremes, and possible impacts of future and stronger climatic disturbances. We use high resolution agricultural and climate data from the Food, Agricultural and Fisheries Mexican Information Service and DAYMET respectively, to perform an analysis at the state level. We use a panel model analysis to describe the crop yields sensitivity to past and future climate variability of the most valuable perennial crops in Mexico. Here, we present preliminary results from this research, focusing on a descriptive historical analysis covering the 1980-2016 period. Our initial findings on the impact of changes to date will contribute to the efforts to anticipate how climate change will affect the availability of economically and ecologically valuable perennial crops.