While cropping system diversifcation has strong potential to reduce climate risks to crop yields at a time when such risks are rapidly increasing, resilience of agricultural production is only part of what makes for resilient agricultural communities and food systems. Diversifying processes across multiple dimensions of agri-food systems will be needed to build adaptive capacity to climate change.
Conclusion from the review and future trends in research
Restoring cropping system diversity in industrialized agricultural systems supports crop yields, multiple metrics of yield stability, and resilience to climaterelated risks. The many underlying mechanisms include complementarity and facilitation, benefcial plant-soil feedbacks, and the portfolio effect that operates across multiple scales. Diversifed systems also typically enhance ecosystem services that can support yields and reduce the need for non-renewable inputs, as well as those that beneft society as a whole. However, structural barriers such as market constraints and policy disincentives limit the widespread adoption of these systems.