​​Forecasting Agricultural Crop Yields At National Scales (FACYNATION)

PI - Seb Oliver (University Of Sussex)
Food Side Co-Investigators - Edward Pope (Met Office), Yoseph Araya (Open University)
STFC Side Co-Investigators - Pete Hurley (University Of Sussex), Bjoern Soergel (University Of Cambridge, Potsdam Institute For Climate Impacts Research)

---

Quantifying the present-day climate risk to global food production, and the likely impacts of climate change, are a vital part of achieving SDG 2 (zero hunger). Recent Met Office research shows that natural climate variability explains 50-90% of wheat, maize and rice yield variability world-wide. In turn, wheat, maize and rice account for nearly 60% of global food energy intake. However, building a sustainable, resilient global food system which ensures food security for all requires a deeper understanding of climate-yield relationships for the world’s staple crops. FACYNation will bring together STFC data science experts and Met Office climate scientists and Open University plant ecologists to exploit this research by assessing the potential for accurate real-time yield forecasts in major production regions, and likely climate change impacts. These are essential for supporting food system decision-makers in understanding and managing their climate risk.

Read more about this project in this blog.

An empirical, Bayesian approach to modelling crop yield: Maize in USA (Academic paper)

FACYnation resources on GitHub

2018 AWARDED SCOPING PROJECT - More scoping projects