Climate smart agriculture and global food-crop production

5 Conclusion Much has been written about CSA and its potential benefits but most of the existing analyses are based on local experiences and no study has so far attempted to quantify these benefits on a global scale. Our results show that widespread adoption of CSA practices can increase pro- duction and lower world prices of wheat, maize, and rice under future unfavorable climatic conditions. The reduction in prices is projected to make food products more accessible to mil- lions of people thereby lowering the number of people at risk of hunger and that of undernour- ished children. These gains can be obtained while improving soil fertility and with a reduction in GHG emissions. Taken all together, results suggest that CSA practice can deliver benefits across its three foundational pillars on a planetary scale. However, what clearly transpires from our results is that to make a significant impact, the principles of CSA must be applied widely across production systems and for this to occur sig- nificant investments must be made. Ideally, as others have suggested [85], the same or similar principles should be applied across the whole food system (i.e. trade, stocks, nutrition and social policies). It is also clear that the wide-ranging and multidimensional effects, sometime unintended or unforeseen, must be understood and managed. CSA with its multi-objective approach may provide a useful framework for decision-making ranging from the farm to the policy level. Supporting information S1 File. (DOCX) Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Jennifer Lieberman, Daniel Mason-D’Croz, Keith Wiebe, and Chan- ning Arndt for their help and useful comments. The authors take sole responsibility for the opinions expressed within this article. Author Contributions Conceptualization: Alessandro De Pinto. Data curation: Alessandro De Pinto, Nicola Cenacchi, Ho-Young Kwon, Jawoo Koo, Shahnila Dunston. Formal analysis: Alessandro De Pinto, Nicola Cenacchi, Ho-Young Kwon. Investigation: Alessandro De Pinto. Methodology: Alessandro De Pinto, Nicola Cenacchi. Supervision: Alessandro De Pinto. Validation: Nicola Cenacchi, Jawoo Koo. Visualization: Nicola Cenacchi. Writing – original draft: Alessandro De Pinto, Nicola Cenacchi, Ho-Young Kwon. Writing – review & editing: Alessandro De Pinto, Nicola Cenacchi. PLOS ONE Climate smart agriculture and global food-crop production PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231764 April 29, 2020 14 / 19