The Impact of Climate Change on Iran's Food Security: Predicting the Potential Yield and Production of Strategic Crops based on SSM-iCrop2 model

Food security reduction due to climate change is one of the most important challenges in the 21st century. This study was carried out to predict the potential yield and production of the country’s strategic crops examining various climate change scenarios. In this study, the potential yield & production of 17 crops (Wheat, barley, rice, common bean, rapeseed, chickpea, grain maize, cotton, lentil, potato, sesame, soybean, sugar beet, sugarcane, sunflower, alfalfa and Silage maize) were estimated under current conditions (period 2005-2014) & two climatic scenarios (optimistic:1.5 ° C increase in temperature with 14% increase in precipitation period 2005-2014; pessimistic: 1.5 ° C increase in temperature & 14% decrease in precipitation period 2005-2014) applying SSM-iCrop2 model. The results showed that the pessimistic scenario reduced the potential production of wheat & legumes (about 1%) & the optimistic scenario increased the potential production of these crops (4 & 2%, respectively). Both climate change scenarios reduced the potential production of rice, potato, oilseeds & sugar crops (4, 10, 5 & 7%, respectively). Furthermore, the potential production of Silage maize increased in both climate change scenarios (2% & 3%, respectively). The results showed that the major factors which alter crop yield could be the growing season duration, radiation use efficiency and transpiration efficiency. In general, wheat, barley, potato, and sugarcane were more affected by climate change than other crops.