Heat stress is a major source of crop loss, especially in climate change and extreme weather scenarios. Plants can acquire tolerance to severe heat stress if previously exposed to moderate stress.
A spatial assessment of heat stress risk has detected that crops in many regions, including Central North America and Brazil, would suffer increased heat stress due to climate changes (Teixeira et al., 2013, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology). Strategies to mitigate food loss due to heat stress connect directly to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (Goal 2 - Zero Hunger and Goal 13 - Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts), that has “Food security and nutrition and sustainable agriculture” and “climate change” as topics of interest. Thus, knowledge about acquired thermotolerance in plants can improve food security, especially in climate change and extreme weather scenarios.