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Managing for climate and production goals on crop-lands

Published Article

Global

Publication date: May 19, 2025

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Crop‑land natural climate solutions are often assumed to benefit both mitigation and production, yet global modeling through 2100 shows win–win outcomes are uncommon. Grass cover crops with no tillage could mitigate 32.6 Pg CO₂‑eq by 2050 but reduce cumulative yields by 4.8 Pg. Legume cover crops perform well through mid‑century but increase emissions in some regions by 2100. Favorable outcomes are more likely in soils with low nitrogen and high clay content. When avoiding yield losses, mitigation potential drops to just 4.4 Pg CO₂‑eq by 2050, indicating that crop‑land soils will contribute only a small share of food‑system decarbonization. These results underscore the need to weigh trade‑offs carefully when designing crop‑land NCS strategies.

Subject Tags

  • Agriculture
  • Carbon storage
  • Natural climate solutions

Abstract

The assumption that crop-land natural climate solutions (NCS) have benefits for both climate change mitigation and crop production remains largely untested. Here we model GHG emissions and crop yields from crop-land NCS through the end of the century. We find that favourable (win–win) outcomes were the exception not the norm; grass cover crops with no tillage lead to cumulative global GHG mitigation of 32.6 Pg CO2 equivalent, 95% confidence interval (29.5, 35.7), by 2050 but reduce cumulative crop yields by 4.8 Pg, 95% confidence interval (4.0, 5.7). Legume cover crops with no tillage result in favourable outcomes through 2050 but increase GHG emissions for some regions by 2100. Crop-lands with low soil nitrogen and high clay are more likely to have favourable outcomes. Avoiding crop losses, we find modest GHG mitigation benefits from crop-land NCS, 4.4 Pg CO2 equivalent, 95% confidence interval (4.2, 4.6) by 2050, indicating crop-land soil will constitute a fraction of food system decarbonization.

Citation

McClelland, S. C., Bossio, D., Gordon, D. R., Lehmann, J., Hayek, M. N., Ogle, S. M., ... & Woolf, D. (2025). Managing for climate and production goals on crop-lands. Nature Climate Change, 15(6), 642-649. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-025-02337-7

TNC Authors

  • Deborah Bossio
    Lead Scientist, Food & Water Systems
    The Nature Conservancy
    Email: deborah.bossio@tnc.org

  • Stephen A. Wood
    Senior Scientist, Agriculture and Food Systems
    The Nature Conservancy
    Email: stephen.wood@tnc.org