Climatic effects on U.S. agricultural productivity: Evidence and prediction from total factor productivity and crop yields

• Learned the climate impact models on US agricultural productivity. • Quantified the impacts on future productivity growth under various scenarios. • The future climate change will reduce U.S. agricultural productivity growth rates. • The U.S. agricultural productivity growth rates would be canceled out in 5–25 years. Climate conditions such as the dynamics of temperature and precipitation significantly influence agricultural production. Therefore, the climate-induced agricultural economic consequences cannot be neglected. This study employs machine learning models with time series climate data, a panel of state-by-year total factor productivity estimates (1960–2004) for 48 contiguous states of the United States (U.S.), and the yield data for corn and soybean (1960–2020) in the main producing states to quantify the potential climatic effects on U.S. agricultural productivity under different climate scenarios. The results show that the climate change impacts are spatially heterogeneous under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 climate change scenarios from 2020 to 2050. However, the effects on future agricultural productivity are consistently negative regardless of the region. The negative climatic effects on productivity growth will offset the advancements of U.S. agricultural productivity after 5–25 years under various climate change scenarios assuming the same advancement rates as the past. The predictions of the impacts could advance our understanding of future productivity growth in U.S. agriculture under climate change. The analysis results could also shed light on policy planning to mitigate various effects and threats to food security due to the changing climate.