Cropland expansion in a nuclear winter with loss of industry

Luísa Monteiro , Michael Hinge , Simon Blouin, David Denkenberger

A nuclear war has the potential to cause an abrupt-sunlight-reduction scenario and the
collapse of electricity/industry, disrupting food production and distribution worldwide and creating widespread food insecurity. In this work, we explore the potential of using animal draught as a power source to cultivate current cropland and expand cropland area during a nuclear winter with loss of industry. For a 150 tera-grams soot injection with no fertiliser application, the current animal count would be able to cultivate over 700 million hectares (Mha) of current cropland, and expand cropland area by 100 Mha. The grain produced from these areas would be used partly to feed the working animals, and the remaining wheat would be enough to feed more than half of the global population by the fourth year of the catastrophe, making outdoor agriculture and cropland expansion viable methods to mitigate starvation in such a scenario.