Examining Climate Variability’s Impact on Simultaneous Breadbasket Yield Shocks

A University of Maryland study uses more than 34,000 yield observations from 25 countries back to 1900 to examine simultaneous crop shocks in global breadbaskets. It finds that maize yield shocks hit at least three of nine breadbaskets at once 10.3% of the time.

Shocks across four or five breadbaskets were much rarer.