Feeding the World in 2050: Closing Yield Gaps on Hostile Soils

Yield gaps are the difference between a farm’s current yield and its potential yield if it were run with the best agronomy and technology. The greatest potential for closing yield gaps occurs in developing countries where yields are often limited by inadequate soil nutrition or opportunities for managing disease and pests. But there is also enormous potential for closing yield gaps in regions with hostile soils or other persistent abiotic stresses because the available, but untapped, genetic variation within crop species is often sufficient to breed better adapted cultivars.