Food Sec (2011) 3:111–112 DOI 10.1007/s12571-010-0090-3 BOOK REVIEW Matthew P Reynolds (Ed): Climate change and crop production CAB International, Wallingford, 292pp 2010 Peter J Gregory Received: 29 November 2010 / Accepted: 29 November 2010 / Published online: December 2010 # Springer Science+Business Media B.V & International Society for Plant Pathology 2010 This volume is the first in a new series from CAB International on climate change Matthew Reynolds has done a good job in bringing together a range of high-quality authors to explore the issues raised for crop production by the recorded and projected changing climate, in a book that goes well beyond the conventional explorations of impact, adaptation and mitigation The 13 chapters comprising the main elements of the book are grouped under four headings: predictions of climate change and its impact on crop productivity (2 chapters); adapting to biotic and abiotic stresses through crop breeding (5 chapters); sustainable and resource-conserving technologies for adaptation to and mitigation of climate change (3 chapters); and finally, new tools for enhancing crop adaptation to climate change (3 chapters) As might be imagined from these headings, the book is focussed on technological ways of dealing with the changing climate, and there is little acknowledgement of agriculture as a socially constructed activity, nor of the contributions of markets, institutions and governance arrangements in the way societies might organise themselves to cope with the challenges that climate change poses Underlying the narrative is the realisation that, even without the challenges posed by a changing climate, crop production will need to increase substantially in the next few decades to feed a growing population with, on average, a higher standard of living than at present Robert Watson (Chief Scientific Advisor, Defra, UK) captures this well in his introduction to the book, writing that “doubling food P J Gregory (*) Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI), Invergowrie, Dundee DD2 5DA, UK e-mail: peter.gregory@scri.ac.uk availability over the coming decades in the context of climate change and other stresses will require advances in crop research and agricultural practices, with emphasis on the sustainable management of water and soils” Throughout the book there are many attempts to marry these multiple requirements of increased crop production, of new crop genotypes that are less susceptible to biotic and abiotic stresses, and of sustainable production practices to gain multiple benefits in addition to coping with the challenges of a changing climate Chapter gives a measured account of what is known and unknown about the future climate It recognises that the amount of warming will depend on the quantities of radiatively-active gases emitted and suggests a 1-3°C global increase in temperature by 2050, rising to 2-4°C by 2100 Of course, for crop production, the changes in rainfall are likely to be of greater importance than those in temperature for much of the world Here the projections are much more uncertain because precipitation is driven by a wider range of atmospheric processes than temperature, with regional changes more likely than global ones So, as today, there may be drought in some places and waterlogging elsewhere (but just more variable?) Overall, if temperature increases by more than a degree or so, warming effects are likely to decrease crop growth and yield However, as the authors state very clearly, the high degree of uncertainty about impacts on crops “makes the prediction of effects on agriculture difficult and can result in contradictory results” This is a good start because it frames well the challenge facing crop scientists as they seek to develop appropriate interventions to deal with an uncertain future The chapters on crop breeding deal with these uncertainties in different ways The physiological and genetic bases for adaptation of germplasm to heat and drought stresses are only partially understood so, despite some 112 advances in the development of markers for these traits, empirical multi-location testing of elite materials is still required The authors emphasise the need for better characterisation of environments to assist with the deployment of markers for complex, adaptive traits but there is silence as to how this might be achieved in practice in a more climatically variable, and uncertain, world Moreover, while much literature predicts increases in the prevalence of agricultural pests and diseases, only a handful of studies have quantified the possible impacts Several authors point out that this has been a much neglected area of research despite ample evidence that pests and diseases are major causes of inefficiency and waste in our current production systems In part this is because of the difficulty of separating the influences of normal, regional, seasonal variations in weather from global climate change effects With or without climate change, though, the increases in production required in the next few decades mean that breeding for pest and disease resistance is an essential component of germplasm improvement Chapters and 10 on greenhouse gas mitigation and conservation agriculture contain highly complementary messages although they are written from different perspectives Both highlight the need for research that more closely integrates the links between sustainability, resource use efficiency and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions The links between these facets of crop production are complex but there are currently few experiments or data sets that contain simultaneous measurements of methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide emissions together with those of carbon sequestration Conservation agriculture, based on minimal soil disturbance, permanent ground cover and rotations, has been shown in several locations to result in improved soil biological and physical fertility, better nutrient cycling and crop growth In rice production systems, it can also result in less methane emissions when flooding is reduced, but considerable care is required with the method and timing of N fertiliser applications if nitrous oxide emissions are also to be reduced If conservation agriculture is to play its full part as a mitigation strategy for P.J Gregory greenhouse gas emissions, then the understanding of the integrated effects of the practices on all greenhouse gases, and the development of technologies and fertilisation practices, will require the sort of research effort that has previously been expended on production systems involving inversion of the soil Unusually for a book on this subject, the final set of chapters examines some of the new tools that are emerging to assist with speeding up the rate of crop improvement Throughout the chapters the message is clear: that conventional and biotechnological approaches will be needed to decrease the impact of agricultural production by increasing the efficiency of production and simultaneously decreasing greenhouse gas emissions The chapter on the use of biotechnology in agriculture combines both a conventional account of the range of methodologies that are now available with an original description in a series of boxes distributed throughout the text of thirty examples of the benefits that biotechnology has brought to crop improvement These examples range from the well-known introgression of the Rht gene from the Japanese Norin-10 into elite wheat varieties, through gamma-irradiation mutation of cereals to produce, for example, Golden Promise, which was a top malting barley in Scotland in the 1970s and 1980s, to the recent use of TILLING populations to identify 196 new alleles in the A and B genome waxy genes (granule bound starch synthase genes) in chemically induced mutants of wheat These examples should be compulsory reading for all students of crop science The final two chapters demonstrate the vital role that mathematical and statistical scientists play in modern programmes of crop improvement and how their skills can be employed to understand a more climatically uncertain future In summary, this is one of the best collections of papers that I have read on the subject of climate change and crop production and contains much to challenge the reader Its implicit message to simultaneously research crop improvement through breeding, and crop husbandry through improved pest, disease, tillage, fertiliser and water management is to be applauded