Implications of climate change for global mango production: challenges and opportunities.

In the mango growing tropical and subtropical regions, the general trends of climate change are higher temperature, lower precipitation and higher frequency of extreme events such as scorching heat, drought, flooding or destructive wind. Soil and water salinity are expected to increase near the coast because of the sea level rise. These trends are not favorable to mango production in the current mango producing regions. Although large areas in the currently cooler subtropical regions will become biophysically suitable for mango growing, the higher land value and social-economical development level in those regions will very probably not favor the shifting of the global mango production into those regions. Therefore, global mango production needs to adapt to the changes within the current mango growing zone. The first way of adaptation is that the cultivation will move further into highlands where climate will be more suitable for mango (though suitable land will be limited). The second way, which is not exclusive of the first one, is to adapt mango cultivation to the predicted environment via development of better cultivation practices that will mitigate the impacts of high temperature, water stress, light stress and salinity. Another more challenging and promising approach is breeding and selection of genetically improved mango varieties that are suitable to or at least tolerant to the changed climate conditions. Potentials and opportunities of the above adaptation approaches will be discussed. Finally, as majority of the global mango producers are developing countries/regions, it is particularly challenging for them to develop and implement adaptation strategies for their mango industry. Therefore, international collaboration and global funding will be necessary for the genetic improvement of mango varieties and research on improving mango cultivation practices.