This NPR article says that climate change is allowing North Dakota farmers to switch from wheat to corn.

“Especially the increase in moisture has allowed for better yields and more profit in corn than, say, if we had some of the lesser moisture we had in the ’70s and the ’80s,” Ritchison says.

Corn and soybeans, which also like the moisture, now cover about 15 percent of North Dakota’s cropland, says Ritchison, and the number of acres keeps expanding. The Slabaugh farm is a prime example of corn’s advance. They will plant at least 1,500 acres this year — compared to none 10 years ago.

Changes in weather patterns aren’t the only reason for the move to corn. The crop is also more lucrative: Corn produces much bigger yields per acre than wheat.

All well and good for those farmers, but this doesn’t strike me as an upbeat story in the larger context. If we are in danger of losing productive farmland in many states due to a combination of heat, drought, and groundwater depletion, is it really so helpful that productive farmland in other states is now able to switch from one crop to another? Even if biotechnology helps and yields get higher, it seems like it would be a net loss. This is the United States. What is the story in the tropics, where there is generally less farmland and more people?