Sustainable Crops: Feeding Billions Without Feeding Climate Change
Crop agriculture drives emissions at every stage — from land conversion to farming practices to runoff. Converting forests and grasslands into cropland releases vast stores of carbon. On farms, fertilizers generate nitrous oxide (N₂O), machinery burns fossil fuels, soils release CO₂ when tilled, and practices like field burning emit multiple greenhouse gases. Intensive monocropping (repeatedly growing a single crop on the same land) also degrades soils, weakening their ability to store carbon. Meanwhile, fertilizer runoff fuels algal blooms — a process known as eutrophication, or the over-enrichment of water with nutrients — releasing additional methane (CH₄) and N₂O as they decompose.
Today’s global food system is both a lifeline and a climate liability. Conventional farming feeds us all. It also drives deforestation, depletes soils, pollutes waterways, and emits nearly a quarter of global greenhouse gases. With the global population expected to grow to nearly 10 billion by 2050, agriculture will need to produce far more food while generating far less emissions. Enter sustainable farming. Innovators are breeding plants that thrive with less fertilizer, engineering new crops that resist pests and heat, and creating varieties of rice that emit less methane. Paired with precision agriculture and green fertilizer innovations, these approaches could boost yields, cut emissions, and preserve soil health — ensuring the world’s farms can nourish people and the planet for generations to come.
Using IPCC and GCAM data, Energy Innovation projected future “greenhouse gas emissions at stake” in 2050, assuming current policies remain in place. The resulting estimates overlap because different technologies may reduce the same emissions pool.
The Path We’re On
Agriculture is feeding climate change.
We all have to eat — which means agriculture is essential to human survival. It also has a massive emissions problem. Responsible for nearly a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, today’s food production systems are undermining the very ecological foundations we depend on.
Where do agricultural emissions come from?
Crop systems generate huge amounts of greenhouse gases, especially nitrous oxide from synthetic fertilizers and methane from rice cultivation.
Agriculture drives about 90% of tropical deforestation, converting carbon-rich forests into cropland and releasing vast stores of carbon in the process. Expanding farmland to boost yields further threatens biodiversity and natural carbon sinks.
Intensive monocropping, chemical use, and deep tillage erode soil health, depleting organic matter and reducing productivity. Degraded soils store less carbon, require more fertilizer, and jeopardize long-term food security.
Fertilizer runoff contributes to nutrient pollution that fuels algal blooms; when the algae decompose, microbes break them down in oxygen-poor conditions, and methane and nitrous oxide are released.
The bad news: this big problem is only getting bigger. With the global population approaching 10 billion by 2050, agriculture faces a double-edged challenge. We must close a 56% food gap (the difference between today’s food production and what will be needed to feed the global population) while dramatically reducing agriculture’s environmental footprint — all in a way that works for the world’s farmers.
The stakes are sky-high. Left unchecked, agricultural emissions could rise nearly 60% by mid-century, consuming most of the remaining global carbon budget and driving irreversible harm to precious ecosystems.
The good news? The opportunity for innovation is also enormous.
A New Way Forward
Rethinking what we grow (and how we grow it)
Turning agriculture from a climate problem into a climate solution will require innovation at every level of the food system, from the genes of the crops themselves to the fertilizers and soils that sustain them. The following imperatives and moonshots are, we think, the most promising pathways to decarbonize crops. They represent two horizons of change: practical breakthroughs that can reduce emissions and boost resilience in today’s fields, and longer-term advances that could fundamentally re-engineer how plants interact with carbon, nitrogen, and sunlight. Together, they chart a path toward a food system that feeds humanity while simultaneously preserving — and even restoring — the planet.
Innovation Imperatives
Increase crop yield without increasing land use
Raising the maximum potential yield of staple crops can help meet rising food and fuel demand without expanding farmland. Innovations in genetics, crop physiology, and nutrient optimization can push yield ceilings higher while maintaining quality. By producing more per acre, these improvements reduce pressure to clear forests and grasslands, protecting nature’s carbon sinks and preserving biodiversity.
Develop alternative production methods for nitrogen fertilizers that minimize manufacturing emissions and N₂O production
Their production is energy-intensive and carbon-heavy, and once applied, nitrogen losses in the field generate nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas nearly 300 times more potent than CO₂. Advances in microbial nitrogen fixation, zero-emissions ammonia production, precision application, and nitrogen-efficient crops can maintain or increase yields while sharply reducing both manufacturing and on-farm emissions. Scaling these solutions is critical to cutting one of agriculture’s most powerful and persistent sources of climate pollution.
Improve organic and inorganic carbon sequestration in soils through scalable solutions
Restoring and enhancing soil carbon can transform farmland into a powerful force for climate stability. Approaches include crop genetics that drive deeper root systems, microbial processes that stabilize organic matter, and mineral amendments like finely ground silicate rocks that accelerate inorganic carbon capture. For impact at scale, these approaches must be cost-effective, scientifically verifiable, and supported by supply chains capable of gigaton-level deployment.
Enable low-methane rice cultivation through genetic improvements or methane mitigation intervention
Flooded rice paddies are a major source of methane emissions, driven by anaerobic microbial activity in waterlogged soils. Developing rice varieties with traits that suppress methane production — or integrating methane-inhibiting water, soil, and microbial management practices — can sharply reduce emissions from one of the world’s most important staple crops. Low-methane rice preserves yields while cutting a potent greenhouse gas.
Develop climate-tolerant crops that can withstand adverse environmental conditions
As climate change drives more extreme heat, drought, and pest pressure, crop losses threaten global food security. Advances in genetic engineering, epigenetics, and breeding can produce varieties that thrive in harsher conditions, maintaining high yields despite environmental stress. Resilient crops safeguard farmer livelihoods, stabilize food supply, and reduce the need for land conversion that drives deforestation and emissions.
Moonshots
Engineer row crops for significantly higher photosynthetic efficiency
Photosynthesis powers life on Earth, yet most crops convert less than 1% of incoming sunlight into usable energy. This moonshot focuses on redesigning that process to create plants with dramatically higher efficiency, using methods like C3-to-C4 pathway conversion, novel photosynthetic mechanisms, and optimized light capture. The result would be crops with far greater yields on the same amount of land, reducing pressure to clear forests while producing more food and fuel and preserving vital carbon sinks.
Engineer new varieties of plants to limit climate impacts
What if we could redesign the very biology of our crops to make them active partners in solving the climate crisis? This moonshot envisions engineering plants with traits programmed for sustainability. Imagine corn that makes its own fertilizer, reducing nitrogen fertilizer use and cutting nitrous oxide emissions. Or crops that push stable carbon deep into soils, where it can remain for centuries. How about varieties that thrive on marginal lands, require fewer inputs, or produce biomass tailored for clean fuels? Together, these next-generation crops could become active partners in climate mitigation while preserving or even enhancing the world’s food supply.
The most viable solutions will:
Farmer economics are paramount. New practices will only scale if they are economically advantageous—by lowering input costs, improving productivity, opening new revenue streams (such as carbon markets), and/or otherwise aligning climate outcomes with farmer incentives.
Credible solutions must meaningfully cut the emissions intensity of crop production, particularly from fertilizers, which are central to modern yields but also among agriculture’s largest climate liabilities. Reducing manufacturing emissions and nitrous oxide losses in the field can deliver climate gains while lowering costs, improving water quality, and protecting soil health.
To feed a growing global population without expanding farmland, agriculture must produce more on the roughly 30% of Earth’s habitable land already under cultivation. Higher yields are one of the strongest defenses against deforestation, since every additional unit of food grown on existing land reduces pressure to clear carbon-rich forests and grasslands.
As heat, drought, floods, and pests intensify, crops that once thrived are increasingly vulnerable. Building resilience is not only about protecting yields, but also stabilizing harvests, safeguarding farmer livelihoods, and reducing volatility in regions where food insecurity is already most acute.
Because agriculture occupies a vast share of the planet, solutions must be scientifically sound and globally scalable — adaptable across geographies, climates, and crop systems, and capable of reaching meaningful impact across the world’s farms.
