Estimating variability in grain legume yields across Europe and the Americas

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 5; no. 1; p. 11171
• Main Authors: Cernay, Charles, Ben-Ari, Tamara, Pelzer, Elise, Meynard, Jean-Marc, Makowski, David
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 08.06.2015; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 631/449; 704/172; Agricultural production; Agriculture; Americas; Aversion; Crops; Edible Grain - growth & development; Environmental services; Europe; Fabaceae - growth & development; Humanities and Social Sciences; Legumes; Life Sciences; multidisciplinary; Science; Statistical methods; Americas; Europe; crop insurance; achievements; challenges; systems; responses; risk; aggregation; uncertainty; distributions
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep11171

Grain legume production in Europe has recently come under scrutiny. Although legume crops are often promoted to provide environmental services, European farmers tend to turn to non-legume crops. It is assumed that high variability in legume yields explains this aversion, but so far this hypothesis has not been tested. Here, we estimate the variability of major grain legume and non-legume yields in Europe and the Americas from yield time series over 1961–2013. Results show that grain legume yields are significantly more variable than non-legume yields in Europe. These differences are smaller in the Americas. Our results are robust at the level of the statistical methods. In all regions, crops with high yield variability are allocated to less than 1% of cultivated areas. Although the expansion of grain legumes in Europe may be hindered by high yield variability, some species display risk levels compatible with the development of specialized supply chains.