Table 6.

Optimized crop/s for providing dietary energy and protein while minimizing land use (ha) for cropping according to different scenarios (% of current cropping land).

Base case and scenarios	Optimized crops [% of area]	Nuclear war but otherwise business-as-usual agricultural productivity (Scenario NW0)	8% reduction in agricultural productivity from nuclear winter (Scenario NW1)	28% reduction in agricultural productivity from nuclear winter (Scenario NW2)	61% reduction in agricultural productivity from nuclear winter (Scenario NW3)
Base case: Meeting both dietary energy and protein requirements for the whole New Zealand population (current levels)	Wheat [96.8%], carrots [3.2%]	116,000 ha (18.6%)	126,000 ha (20.3%)	161,000 ha (25.9%)	297,000 ha (47.8%)
Scenario A: As per the base case but using plausibly acceptable lower levels of dietary energy (10% less) and protein (35% less) due to relatively high intakes in the current era (see Table 4 for currently high protein intakes)	Wheat [58.7%], carrots [41.3%]	92,000 ha (14.8%)	100,000 ha (16.1%)	128,000 ha (20.6%)	236,000 ha (38.0%)
Scenario B: As per the base case but assuming only 50% of both energy and protein intakes from frost resistant crops (assuming the rest of the food is obtained from additional sources of frost sensitive crops [e.g., in green houses] and grass-fed livestock products – see Methods)	Wheat [98.3%], carrots [1.7%]	58,200 ha (9.4%)	63,200 ha (10.2%)	80,800 ha (13.0%)	149,000 ha (24.0%)