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Agriculture in the Midwest

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Agriculture in the Midwest WHITE PAPER PREPARED FOR THE U.S. GLOBAL CHANGE RESEARCH PROGRAM NATIONAL CLIMATE ASSESSMENT MIDWEST TECHNICAL INPUT REPORT Jerry Hatfield National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment Department of Agronomy, Iowa State University Recommended Citation: Hatfield, J., 2012: Agriculture in the Midwest. In: U.S. National Climate Assessment Midwest Technical Input Report. J. Winkler, J. Andresen, J. Hatfield, D. Bidwell, and D. Brown, coordinators. Available from the Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments (GLISA) Center, http://glisa.msu.edu/docs/NCA/MTIT_Agriculture.pdf. At the request of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments Center (GLISA) and the National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment formed a Midwest regional team to provide technical input to the National Climate Assessment (NCA). In March 2012, the team submitted their report to the NCA Development and Advisory Committee. This whitepaper is one chapter from the report, focusing on potential impacts, vulnerabilities, and adaptation options to climate variability and change for the agriculture sector. U.S. National Climate Assessment: Midwest Technical Input Report: Agriculture Sector White Paper Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3 Historical Impacts on Production ..................................................................................................................................................................... 3 Sensitivity to Temperature ............................................................................................................................................................................. 4 Potential Future Impacts ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 5 High Temperatures ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 6 CO2 Concentration and Evapotranspiration ............................................................................................................................................ 6 Precipitation ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6 Water Quality ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6 Weeds, Pests, and Disease .............................................................................................................................................................................. 6 Stresses on Livestock ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 6 Adaptation .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 7 Risk Assessment ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 References .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 8 2 U.S. National Climate Assessment: Midwest Technical Input Report: Agriculture Sector White Paper Introduction The impact of climate on agricultural production in the Agriculture in the Midwest United States (Illinois, Indiana, Midwest varies among years particularly in grain, vegetable, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin) and fruit production. Fortunately, there are extensive represents one of the most intense areas of agriculture in records of agricultural production across the Midwest the world. This area is not only critically important for the which allow for a detailed examination of the variation United States economy but also for world exports of grain among years, the relationship to changes in the weather in and meat. In the 2007 Census of Agriculture these states each growing season, and the changing climate over a long had a market value of crop and livestock products sold of time period in the Midwest. Variation among the years for $76,989,749,000 (USDA Census of Agriculture, 2007). corn grain can be seen in the records since 1866 for Iowa Within the U.S., Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota ranked 2, 3, and Michigan production (Fig. 1), soybean for Illinois and and 4 in the value of crops sold and Iowa ranked 3rd in the Indiana (Fig. 2), sweet corn in Minnesota and Wisconsin value of livestock, poultry and their products and Wisconsin (Fig. 3), and potato in Michigan and Wisconsin (Fig. 4). ranked 7th in the value of livestock, poultry and their products sold. The economic value of agriculture in the Midwest encompasses corn, soybean, livestock, vegetables, Historical Impacts on Production fruits, tree nuts, berries, nursery and greenhouse plants. The economic value of the crop and livestock commodities Climate impacts on production are detectable throughout in these states continues to increase because of the rising the history of observations in the United States. There is prices. another trend which is noteworthy in these observations which is related to the rapid and steady increase in annual Midwestern states are considered to be the Corn Belt; production for crops beginning after the mid-1940’s with however, there is a diversity of agricultural production the introduction of commercial fertilizers and enhanced beyond corn and soybean. Area in corn for the Midwest in genetic materials. However, the introduction of improved 2007 was 20,360,396 hectares followed by soybean with agronomic practices has not alleviated the effect from years 14,277,472 hectares. The diversity of agricultural with large impacts caused by unfavorable weather during production is shown in Table 1 for the amount of the the growing season. Soybean production has shown a commodity produced and the state rank based on the 2007 steady increase since records began for the Midwest in Census of Agriculture (USDA, 2007). 1924 and there are years with large reductions in yield Table 1. Commodities produced and state rank for the Midwest region of the United States. Commodity Illinois Indiana Iowa Michigan Minnesota Ohio Wisconsin Amount Rank Amount Rank Amount Rank Amount Rank Amount Rank Amount Rank Amount Rank Livestock (millions of animals) Layers 5.3 18 24.2 3 53.8 1 9.0 14 10.6 11 20.1 2 4.9 19 Hogs and pigs 4.3 4 3.7 5 19.3 1 1.0 14 7.6 3 1.8 10 1.1 Pullets 0.9 28 6.9 5 11.4 1 2.0 16 3.2 12 6.8 6 1.2 22 Turkeys 0.8 19 6.0 7 4.0 9 2.0 16 18.3 1 2.0 14 3.7 10 Cattle and calves 1.2 26 0.6 3.9 7 1.0 30 1.5 0.8 3.4 9 Broilers 0.3 5.5 23 10.2 4.0 8.6 21 10.0 20 7.1 22 Milk and other dairy products from cows ($100,000) 340.3 20 583.2 14 689.7 12 1,285.6 7 1,475.9 6 861.3 11 4,573.3 2 Crop Production ( 1000 Hectares) Corn for grain 5,300.0 2 2,574.9 5 5,614.1 1 951.3 11 3,157.1 4 1,459.4 8 1,315.6 10 Soybean 3,356.5 2 1,936.0 4 3,485.6 1 694.3 12 2,539.0 3 1,714.4 6 551.6 15 Forage 240.1 32 221.3 33 455.5 23 469.6 21 964.7 15 468.0 22 1,132.1 7 Corn for silage 30.4 42.9 17 89.3 8 120.3 7 175.4 74.0 11 296.5 1 Oats for grain 1 27.0 7 Wheat for grain 360.8 12 146.7 19 11.9 211.7 17 691.4 10 296.3 15 113.5 Sorghum for grain 31.0 11 Sugarbeets for sugar 196.5 1 Vegetables 120.3 4 1 Cells with no values entered represent a very small land area and production of the specific commodity. 3 U.S. National Climate Assessment: Midwest Technical Input Report: Agriculture Sector White Paper for growth. It is important to realize that there is only a small fraction of the years in 12000 which there is no stress imposed by weather Midwest Corn Grain Production on crop growth or yield. 10000 Sensitivity to Temperature ) 8000 -1 Temperature effects on plant growth have been extensively studied and future impacts 6000 of climate change may be more related to changes in temperature compared to other 4000 Yield (kg ha climatic factors. Each of the crops grown in the Midwest has a specific temperature M ichigan 2000 Iowa range characterized by a lower and upper limit at which growth ceases and an optimum temperature at which growth 0 proceeds at a rate for maximum size of the 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 plant. These temperature limits have been Year recently defined for several species relative Figure 1. Annual corn grain yields for Iowa and Michigan from 1866 through 2011 to climate change by Hatfield et al. (2011). (Source: USDA-NASS). The effects of temperature as a climate change parameter has been recently evaluated by several different groups in which they suggest that temperature 3500 stresses may be extremely significant in Midwest Soybean Production terms of affecting crop
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