Future conditions will favor the growth of chickpeas and oranges, while some key crops may become more difficult to cultivate in agricultural heartlands.
While climate change is expected to present significant challenges to agriculture in the coming decades, it could also open the door to the widespread cultivation of crops like chickpeas, soybeans, and oranges across the UK. By 2080, we might even see homegrown hummus, tofu, and marmalade on supermarket shelves.
A new study led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) in collaboration with the University of East Anglia (UEA) forecasts that warmer future temperatures could make the UK suitable for crops such as oranges, chickpeas, and okra — produce traditionally grown in warmer regions of the world.
The study examined the future suitability for over 160 food crops across various UK regions, considering warming scenarios of 2 and 4 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times, according to a press release.
Part of the OpenCLIM research project, this modelling study is the most comprehensive of its kind and the first to map how the suitability for certain crops will vary across the UK. The findings, with projections for every 1km square in the country, provide valuable insights for the farming and food sectors about the future opportunities and challenges of growing new crops in the UK.
Need for Resilience
“Our climate is expected to change substantially over coming decades at a time when there will be rising demand for food due to population growth,” lead author Dr John Redhead, a Spatial Ecologist at UKCEH, said. “It is therefore essential that arable farming becomes more resilient; one possible solution is growing different crops that are more suited to the new local conditions.”
Climate change is already significantly impacting UK agriculture, either directly affecting crop plants or making it more challenging for farmers to manage them effectively. Several years have seen record-low yields due to extreme weather events, often occurring in combination, such as a wet winter followed by a particularly dry spring. Additionally, new agricultural pests and diseases are either becoming established or increasing as a result of climate change.
Many of the new crops highlighted in the UKCEH-led study—funded by UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) and published in the journal *Climate Resilience and Sustainability*—are not only more tolerant of hotter, drier summers but also thrive in milder, wetter winters.
The research examined whether future climate scenarios would make conditions more or less suitable for various crops, compared to recent average UK temperatures, which are estimated to be around 0.5 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels. The key findings were:
- Climate change results in increased suitability for many current and potential new crops across much of the UK.
- However, some key produce is likely to become harder to grow in the Southeast and East Anglia, the UK’s most productive arable regions. The climate in these areas is expected to become less suitable for wheat and strawberries under the 2 degrees of warming scenario, while 4 degrees of warming would result in reduced suitably for other major crops including onions and oats.
- There would be substantial increases in suitability for a broad range of crops not currently widely grown in the UK – such as sunflower, durum wheat, soybeans, cow peas, chickpeas, citrus fruit and okra – as well as wine grapes.
Diversity Offers Multiple Benefits
The study authors note that the global food supply relies heavily on a small number of crops, and increasing diversity could enhance food security by improving climate resilience.
This shift would also have positive effects on broader biodiversity and people’s diets. Legumes like chickpeas and soybeans, which recently had their first commercial UK harvests, are key protein sources. This would help encourage a transition from high meat consumption to a more balanced diet, with a lower carbon footprint. Additionally, legumes enrich the soil with nitrogen, reducing the need for fertilizers.
Risks and Challenges
While a changing climate across the UK is expected to support a range of new crops, the study shows that the largest increases in suitability will occur in the southwest and Scottish borders. This is because the benefits of rising temperatures are not offset by limited water availability in the summer, especially under 4 degrees of warming.
However, many regions outside the Southeast and East Anglia face challenges such as small field sizes, variable topography, and distance from current food processing and supply chains, which limits the potential for shifting production to these areas. There are also economic risks associated with investing in new agronomic practices and technology, as well as potential environmental risks from introducing crops to new locations, including impacts on pollinators, wild crop relatives, and pests.
Solutions
- Methods to cope with the challenges highlighted in the study include:
- Further research into the viability of the crops that are identified as ‘winners’.
- Changing our agricultural supply and distribution networks to better support farmers growing new crops in new locations.
- Adopting new agricultural systems such as paludiculture (wet farming) and indoor vertical farming.
- Breeding and growing more heat- or drought-resilient varieties of existing staple crops.
The release notes that no one can definitively say whether a certain crop will be possible or profitable in 2080, but the study addresses the gap in knowledge about climatic suitability of crops in particular regions, which is currently limiting uptake of new produce.
“Without such data, agricultural systems are likely to be ‘locked in’ to current crops, with adaptations failing to keep pace with climate change or relying on practices that exacerbate its impacts, such as heavy irrigation that would increase water scarcity,” study co-author Professor Rachel Warren of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at UEA said.
“Major changes to agricultural systems and diets can take decades to implement and so our long-term projections provide important information well ahead of time for farmers, supermarkets, researchers, policymakers and the public on the opportunities, challenges and trade-offs involved in adapting to the impacts of climate change.”
The study authors say their horizon-scanning approach on how climate change affects suitability of crops could be transferable to other countries.
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