Persistent La Niñas drive joint soybean harvest failures in North and South America

Abstract

Around 80 % of global soybean supply is produced in southeast South America (SESA), central Brazil (CB) and the United States (US) alone. This concentration of production in few regions makes global soybean supply sensitive to spatially compounding harvest failures. Weather variability is a key driver of soybean variability, with soybeans being especially vulnerable to hot and dry conditions during the reproductive growth stage in summer. El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) teleconnections can influence summer weather conditions across the Americas, presenting potential risks for spatially compounding harvest failures. Here, we develop causal structural models to quantify the influence of ENSO on soybean yields via mediating variables like local weather conditions and extratropical sea surface temperatures (SSTs). We show that soybean yields are predominately driven by soil moisture conditions in summer, explaining ∼50 %, 18 % and 40 % of yield variability in SESA, CB and the US respectively. Summer soil moisture is strongly driven by spring soil moisture, as well as by remote extratropical SST patterns in both hemispheres. Both of these soil moisture drivers are again influenced by ENSO. Our causal models show that persistent negative ENSO anomalies of −1.5 standard deviation (SD) lead to a −0.4 SD soybean reduction in the US and SESA. When spring soil moisture and extratropical SST precursors are pronouncedly negative (−1.5 SD), then estimated soybean losses increase to −0.9 SD for the US and SESA. Thus, by influencing extratropical SSTs and spring soil moisture, persistent La Niñas can trigger substantial soybean losses in both the US and SESA, with only minor potential gains in CB. Our findings highlight the physical pathways by which ENSO conditions can drive spatially compounding events. Such information may increase preparedness against climate-related global soybean supply shocks.