Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture and Food Supply | US EPA (2024)

Agriculture is very sensitive to weather and climate.⁴ It also relies heavily on land, water, and other natural resources that climate affects.⁵ While climate changes (such as in temperature, precipitation, and frost timing) could lengthen the growing season or allow different crops to be grown in some regions,⁶ it will also make agricultural practices more difficult in others.

The effects of climate change on agriculture will depend on the rate and severity of the change, as well as the degree to which farmers and ranchers can adapt.⁷ U.S. agriculture already has many practices in place to adapt to a changing climate, including crop rotation and integrated pest management. A good deal of research is also under way to help prepare for a changing climate.

Learn more about climate change and agriculture:

• Top Climate Impacts on Agriculture
• Agriculture and the Economy
• Environmental Justice and Equity
• What We Can Do
• Related Resources

Top Climate Impacts on Agriculture

Climate change may affect agriculture at both local and regional scales. Key impacts are described in this section.

1. Changes in Agricultural Productivity

Climate change can make conditions better or worse for growing crops in different regions. For example, changes in temperature, rainfall, and frost-free days are leading to longer growing seasons in almost every state.⁸ A longer growing season can have both positive and negative impacts for raising food. Some farmers may be able to plant longer-maturing crops or more crop cycles altogether, while others may need to provide more irrigation over a longer, hotter growing season. Air pollution may also damage crops, plants, and forests.⁹ For example, when plants absorb large amounts of ground-level ozone, they experience reduced photosynthesis, slower growth, and higher sensitivity to diseases.¹⁰

Climate change can also increase the threat of wildfires. Wildfires pose major risks to farmlands, grasslands, and rangelands.¹¹Temperature and precipitation changes will also very likely expand the occurrence and range of insects, weeds, and diseases.¹² This could lead to a greater need for weed and pest control.¹³

Pollination is vital to more than 100 crops grown in the United States.¹⁴ Warmer temperatures and changing precipitation can affect when plants bloom and when pollinators, such as bees and butterflies, come out.¹⁵ If mismatches occur between when plants flower and when pollinators emerge, pollination could decrease.¹⁶

2. Impacts to Soil and Water Resources

Climate change is expected to increase the frequency of heavy precipitation in the United States, which can harm crops by eroding soil and depleting soil nutrients.¹⁸ Heavy rains can also increase agricultural runoff into oceans, lakes, and streams.¹⁹ This runoff can harm water quality.

When coupled with warming water temperatures brought on by climate change, runoff can lead to depleted oxygen levels in water bodies. This is known as hypoxia. Hypoxia can kill fish and shellfish. It can also affect their ability to find food and habitat, which in turn could harm the coastal societies and economies that depend on those ecosystems.²⁰

Sea level rise and storms also pose threats to coastal agricultural communities. These threats include erosion, agricultural land losses, and saltwater intrusion, which can contaminate water supplies.²¹ Climate change is expected to worsen these threats.²²

3. Health Challenges to Agricultural Workers and Livestock

Agricultural workers face several climate-related health risks. These include exposures to heat and other extreme weather, more pesticide exposure due to expanded pest presence, disease-carrying pests like mosquitos and ticks, and degraded air quality.²³ Language barriers, lack of health care access, and other factors can compound these risks.²⁴ Heat and humidity can also affect the health and productivity of animals raised for meat, milk, and eggs.²⁵

For more specific examples of climate change impacts in your region, please see the National Climate Assessment.

Agriculture and the Economy

Agriculture contributed more than $1.1 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product in 2019.²⁶ The sector accounts for 10.9 percent of total U.S. employment—more than 22 million jobs.²⁷ These include not only on-farm jobs, but also jobs in food service and other related industries. Food service makes up the largest share of these jobs at 13 million.²⁸

Cattle, corn, dairy products, and soybeans are the top income-producing commodities.²⁹ The United States is also a key exporter of soybeans, other plant products, tree nuts, animal feeds, beef, and veal.³⁰

Environmental Justice and Equity

Many hired crop farmworkers are foreign-born people from Mexico and Central America.³¹ Most hired crop farmworkers are not migrant workers; instead, they work at a single location within 75 miles of their homes.³² Many hired farmworkers can be more at risk of climate health threats due to social factors, such as language barriers and health care access.

Climate change could affect food security for some households in the country. Most U.S. households are currently food secure. This means that all people in the household have enough food to live active, healthy lives.³³ However, 13.8 million U.S. households (about one-tenth of all U.S. households) were food insecure at least part of the time in 2020.³⁴ U.S. households with above-average food insecurity include those with an income below the poverty threshold, those headed by a single woman, and those with Black or Hispanic owners and lessees.³⁵

Climate change can also affect food security for some Indigenous peoples in Hawai'i and other U.S.-affiliated Pacific islands. Climate impacts like sea level rise and more intense storms can affect the production of crops like taro, breadfruit, and mango.³⁶ These crops are often key sources of nutrition and may also have cultural and economic importance.

What We Can Do

We can reduce the impact of climate change on agriculture in many ways, including the following:

• Incorporate climate-smart farming methods. Farmers can use climate forecasting tools, plant cover crops, and take other steps to help manage climate-related production threats.
• Join AgSTAR. Livestock producers can get help in recovering methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from biogas created when manure decomposes.
• Reduce runoff. Agricultural producers can strategically apply fertilizers, keep their animals out of streams, and take more actions to reduce nutrient-laden runoff.
• Boost crop resistance. Adopt research-proven ways to reduce the impacts of climate change on crops and livestock, such as reducing pesticide use and improving pollination.
• Prevent food waste. Stretch your dollar and shrink your carbon footprint by planning your shopping trips carefully and properly storing food. Donate nutritious, untouched food to food banks and those in need.

See additional actions you can take, as well as steps that companies can take, on EPA’s What You Can Do About Climate Change page.

Endnotes

¹U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Economic Research Service (ERS). (2022). Ag and food statistics: Charting the essentials. Farming and farm income. Retrieved 3/18/2022.

²USDA, ERS. (2022). Ag and food statistics: Charting the essentials. Farming and farm income. Retrieved 3/18/2022.

³USDA, ERS. (2022). Ag and food statistics: Charting the essentials. Farming and farm income. Retrieved 3/18/2022.

⁴Walsh, M.K., et al. (2020). Climate indicators for agriculture. USDA Technical Bulletin 1953. Washington, DC, p. 1.

⁵Gowda, P., et al. (2018). Ch. 10: Agriculture and rural communities. In: Impacts, risks, and adaptation in the United States: Fourth national climate assessment, volume II. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, p. 393.

⁶Walsh, M.K., et al. (2020). Climate indicators for agriculture. USDA Technical Bulletin 1953. Washington, DC, p. 22.

⁷Gowda, P., et al. (2018). Ch. 10: Agriculture and rural communities. In: Impacts, risks, and adaptation in the United States: Fourth national climate assessment, volume II. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, p. 393.

⁸Gowda, P., et al. (2018). Ch. 10: Agriculture and rural communities. In: Impacts, risks, and adaptation in the United States: Fourth national climate assessment, volume II. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, p. 401.

⁹Nolte, C.G., et al. (2018). Ch. 13: Air quality. In: Impacts, risks, and adaptation in the United States: Fourth national climate assessment, volume II. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, p. 513.

¹⁰EPA. (2022). Ecosystem effects of ozone pollution. Retrieved 3/18/2022.

¹¹Gowda, P., et al. (2018). Ch. 10: Agriculture and rural communities. In: Impacts, risks, and adaptation in the United States: Fourth national climate assessment, volume II. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, p. 401.

¹²Ziska, L., et al. (2016). Ch. 7: Food safety, nutrition, and distribution. In: The impacts of climate change on human health in the United States: A scientific assessment. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, p. 197.

¹³Ziska, L., et al. (2016). Ch. 7: Food safety, nutrition, and distribution. In: The impacts of climate change on human health in the United States: A scientific assessment. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, p. 197.

¹⁴USDA. Pollinators. Retrieved 3/18/2022.

¹⁵Walsh, M.K., et al. (2020). Climate indicators for agriculture. USDA Technical Bulletin 1953. Washington, DC, p. 20.

¹⁶Walsh, M.K., et al. (2020). Climate indicators for agriculture. USDA Technical Bulletin 1953. Washington, DC, p. 40.

¹⁷Gowda, P., et al. (2018). Ch. 10: Agriculture and rural communities. In: Impacts, risks, and adaptation in the United States: Fourth national climate assessment, volume II. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, p. 405.

¹⁸Gowda, P., et al. (2018). Ch. 10: Agriculture and rural communities. In: Impacts, risks, and adaptation in the United States: Fourth national climate assessment, volume II. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, p. 409.

¹⁹Gowda, P., et al. (2018). Ch. 10: Agriculture and rural communities. In: Impacts, risks, and adaptation in the United States: Fourth national climate assessment, volume II. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, p. 409.

²⁰Gowda, P., et al. (2018). Ch. 10: Agriculture and rural communities. In: Impacts, risks, and adaptation in the United States: Fourth national climate assessment, volume II. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, p. 405.

²¹Gowda, P., et al. (2018). Ch. 10: Agriculture and rural communities. In: Impacts, risks, and adaptation in the United States: Fourth national climate assessment, volume II. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, p. 405.

²² Gowda, P., et al. (2018). Ch. 10: Agriculture and rural communities. In: Impacts, risks, and adaptation in the United States: Fourth national climate assessment, volume II. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, p. 405.

²³Gamble, J.L., et al. (2016). Ch. 9: Populations of concern. In: The impacts of climate change on human health in the United States: A scientific assessment. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, pp. 247–286.

²⁴Hernandez, T., and S. Gabbard. (2019). Findings from the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) 2015–2016: A demographic and employment profile of United States farmworkers. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Washington, DC, pp. 10–11 and pp. 40–45.

²⁵Walsh, M. K., et al. (2020). Climate indicators for agriculture. USDA Technical Bulletin 1953. Washington, DC, p. 20.

²⁶USDA, ERS. (2022). Ag and food statistics: Charting the essentials. Retrieved 3/18/2022.

²⁷USDA, ERS. (2022). Ag and food statistics: Charting the essentials. Retrieved 3/18/2022.

²⁸USDA, ERS. (2022). Ag and food statistics: Charting the essentials. Retrieved 3/18/2022.

²⁹USDA, ERS. (2022). Farm income and wealth statistics/cash receipts by commodity. Retrieved 3/18/2022.

³⁰USDA, ERS. (2022). Farm income and wealth statistics/cash receipts by commodity. Retrieved 3/18/2022.

³¹USDA, ERS. (2020). Farm income and wealth statistics/cash receipts by state. Retrieved 5/11/2022.

³²USDA, ERS. (2020). Farm income and wealth statistics/cash receipts by state. Retrieved 5/11/2022.

³³USDA, ERS. (2020). Farm income and wealth statistics/cash receipts by state. Retrieved 5/11/2022.

³⁴Coleman-Jensen, A., et al. (2020). Household food security in the United States in 2020, ERR-298, USDA, ERS, p. v.

³⁵Coleman-Jensen, A., et al. (2020). Household food security in the United States in 2020, ERR-298, USDA, ERS, p. v.

³⁶Keener, V., et al. (2018). Ch. 27: Hawai‘i and U.S.-affiliated Pacific islands. In: Impacts, risks, and adaptation in the United States: Fourth national climate assessment, volume II. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, p. 1269.

³⁷Mankin, J.S., et al. (2021). NOAA Drought Task Force report on the 2020–2021 southwestern U.S. drought. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Drought Task Force; NOAA Modeling, Analysis, Predictions and Projections Programs; and National Integrated Drought Information System, p 4.

³⁸Gowda, P., et al. (2018). Ch. 10: Agriculture and rural communities. In: Impacts, risks, and adaptation in the United States: Fourth national climate assessment, volume II. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, p. 401.

³⁹Gowda, P., et al. (2018). Ch. 10: Agriculture and rural communities. In: Impacts, risks, and adaptation in the United States: Fourth national climate assessment, volume II. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, p. 409.

⁴⁰Gowda, P., et al. (2018). Ch. 10: Agriculture and rural communities. In: Impacts, risks, and adaptation in the United States: Fourth national climate assessment, volume II. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, p. 407.

⁴¹Gowda, P., et al. (2018). Ch. 10: Agriculture and rural communities. In: Impacts, risks, and adaptation in the United States: Fourth national climate assessment, volume II. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, p. 415.