From yield to nutrition: re-imagining crop nutritional resilience for global nutrition security under climate change

Climate change is increasingly challenging crop-based food and nutrition security not only through reductions in crop productivity but also by altering the nutritional composition, bioavailability, and functionality properties of food. Rising temperature, drought, excessive rainfall and flooding, elevated atmospheric CO₂, and salinity can modify the accumulation, partitioning, and availability of proteins, minerals, vitamins, carotenoids, phenolics, flavonoids, and other bioactive compounds in crop-derived foods. Elevated CO₂ is frequently associated with dilution of protein, iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), and other minerals in crops while heat and water stress can further disrupt nutrient uptake, translocation, and grain filling. However, responses are not universally negative: moderate environmental stress may stimulate selected phytochemicals and antioxidants, and responses depend strongly on crop species, genotype, nutrient, stress intensity and duration, developmental stage, and environmental context. Nutrient concentration alone also does not determine nutritional value because anti-nutritional factors, food matrix characteristics, processing, digestibility, and bioavailability influence the nutrients ultimately available to consumers. This mini-review synthesizes the evidence on climate-related changes in crop nutritional quality and develops the concept of nutritional resilience around four interconnected dimensions: productivity, nutrient density, bioavailability, and dietary diversity. The framework is intended to complement, not replace, existing food security, nutrition-sensitive agriculture, and climate-resilient approaches by emphasizing whether climate adaptation can maintain nutritionally meaningful food from crop production through consumption.