Changing climate and rainfall patterns are expected to have significant impacts on agricultural productivity, especially in arid and semi‐arid regions that are already marginal for agriculture. Most climate modeling scenarios indicate that the dry lands of West and Central Asia and North Africa, for instance, will be severely affected by droughts and high temperatures in the years to come. This could lead to land degradation and agricultural expansion. By 2050, almost 40 percent of the land currently under low impact agriculture could be converted to more intensive agricultural use with poor farmers being forced to open up ever more marginal lands. One study estimates that climate change.
