About

Dr. Andrew McDonald is an Associate Professor in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences and the Department of Global Development at Cornell University. His research focuses on systems agronomy for global development, contributing to understanding and improving agricultural processes, sustainability, and food security. He is actively involved in academic and research activities, with a presence on Google Scholar and LinkedIn, indicating engagement with scholarly and professional communities.

Research topics

• Economics
• Biology
• Business
• Agronomy
• Geography
• Environmental science
• Agroforestry
• Ecology
• Agricultural engineering
• Agricultural economics
• Environmental economics
• Risk analysis (engineering)
• Marketing
• Medicine
• Natural resource economics
• Engineering
• Public economics
• Economic growth

Selected publications

• Ensemble Machine Learning with Limited Data: Feature Selection and Predicting Wheat Yield in Bangladesh

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Prostate Cancer, Version 3.2026, NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines In Oncology

  Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network · 2025-11-01 · 35 citations

  article

  The NCCN Guidelines for Prostate Cancer provide a framework on which to base decisions for patients with prostate cancer across the disease spectrum. The Guidelines sections included in this article focus on metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer (mCSPC), nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), and metastatic CRPC (mCRPC). For patients with mCSPC, disease characteristics, such as whether metastases arose synchronously or metachronously and the degree of metastatic burden, impact therapy decisions, including how much treatment intensification is appropriate and when prostate-directed and/or metastasis-directed therapy should be considered. In the mCRPC setting, androgen deprivation therapy is continued with the sequential or concurrent addition of certain androgen receptor pathway inhibitors, chemotherapies, immunotherapies, radiopharmaceuticals, and/or targeted therapies. The NCCN Prostate Cancer Panel emphasizes a shared decision-making approach in all disease settings based on patient preferences, prior treatment exposures, biomarkers, the extent and location of metastases, symptoms, and potential side effects.

  PublisherDOI

• Understanding the persistence of rice residue burning in northwestern India: A mixed methods approach

  Agricultural Systems · 2025-10-16 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Characterizing rural livelihoods in a changing environment: a case study in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco

  Discover Sustainability · 2025-01-15 · 7 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The High Atlas Mountains of Morocco are recognized as a global hotspot for rapid environmental change, but there is limited information about how communities and households are responding. Rural livelihoods that are dependent on agriculture are highly vulnerable to intensifying climate extremes, especially when these stressors intersect with long-term socioeconomic trends, including out-migration to urban centers. In 2022–2023, we carried out a a household survey and focus group discussions to understand the evolution of livelihood strategies in four Amazigh villages in Imegdal Commune in the western High Atlas. Results suggest that water shortages are causing cropping systems to simplify, as households stop planting some crop species and reduce the area planted of others. Households are also reducing livestock numbers in response to drought and reductions in labor availability created by migration. Other natural resource-based activities, including beekeeping and collecting wild herbs, are being abandoned. This study suggests that decreasing precipitation is rapidly undermining the viability of agricultural activities in the High Atlas. In the absence of viable adaptation strategies, this could lead to a profound restructuring of rural livelihoods across the region.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Site-specific nutrient management for rice in Nepal: Estimating indigenous nutrient supply, improving fertilizer recommendations, and enhancing yield in the Terai Region

  Journal of Agriculture and Food Research · 2025-07-17 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  To address declining soil fertility and stagnating rice yields in farmers' fields, this study evaluated 4-R (right-source, right-rate, right-time, right-place) principles based site-specific nutrient management (SSNM) strategies and varying potassium application rates in the western foothills of Nepal. Field experiments conducted between 2011–2013 and2022–2023 quantified the indigenous nutrient supply (INS) and evaluated the performance of SSNM strategies. These strategies incorporated real-time nitrogen management using leaf color charts (LCC), soil plant analysis development (SPAD), and Nutrient Expert (decision support tool) along with varying K rates on K-deficient soils to evaluate impacts on yield, nutrient uptake, and nutrient-use efficiencies. The results revealed significant spatial variability in soil nutrient levels, with nitrogen (N) being most limiting, followed by phosphorus (P) and K, with mean INS of 53, 29, and 84 kg N, P 2 O 5 , and K 2 O ha -1 . SSNM increased rice yield by 36 % (1.68 t ha −1 ) over traditional farmer practices and by 12 % over blanket recommendations, while reducing N and P 2 O 5 inputs by 4 % and 28 %, respectively. Potassium application needed to be increased by 80 % to prevent soil depletion, indicating that the current K 2 O recommendationshould be doubled to 80 kg ha −1 to sustain yield and nutrient uptake. LCC-based N increased yield by 4 % without additional N, while SPAD-based N application further saved 8 kg N ha −1 . Farmers' current practices yielded 4.69 t ha −1 reflecting a 33 % yield gap compared to attainable yield (7.0 t ha −1 ). The combine use of LCC-based N with SSNM and Nutrient Expert achieved yields of 6.61 t ha −1 , reduced yield gap just to 5.5 %. Overall, SSNM proved to be a robust strategy for addressing nutrient deficiencies, and improving fertilizer recommendation and use effeciencies in rice, delivering agronomic, economic, and environmental benefits to smallholder systems. However, its wider adoption requires targeted farmers’ training and strengthened extension support. • SSNM increased rice yield by 36 % compared to farmers' traditional fertilizer management practices. • Leaf color chart enhanced N-use efficiency and increased rice yield by 3–4 %. • SSNM reduced N use by 4 % and P by 28 %, increased K use by 80 %, and increased yield by 12 % than the recommended practices. • K supplementation to traditional practices increased rice yield by 17 %, addressing K depletion risks. • For K-deficient soils, current recommendation of 40 kg K 2 O ha −1 should be doubled to optimize nutrient uptake and yield.

  PublisherDOI

• Local irrigation systems, governance, and climate change in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco

  Water Policy · 2025-10-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  ABSTRACT Morocco is a hot spot for climate change, and the impacts of regional decreases in precipitation are experienced acutely in the High Atlas Mountains. Irrigated terraces are central to High Atlas livelihoods and rely on irrigation systems that utilize community-based water allocation, enforced through local governance. This paper explores how irrigation water governance is coping with water scarcity in four villages in Al Haouz Province, based on surveys and focus group discussions. We found that governance and infrastructure have continued to function without increased social conflict, but cropping intensity has been reduced. Increasing drought events with progressive climate change are likely to erode the viability of cropping systems as a foundation for rural livelihoods in the High Atlas region. Pathways for increasing climate resilience should support the continuity of local irrigation systems through community-prioritized actions.

  PublisherDOI

• Understanding the Persistence of Rice Residue Burning in Northwestern India: A Mixed Methods Approach

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Site-Specific Nutrient Management: A Robust Approach to Estimating Indigenous Nutrient Supply, Recommending Fertilizer, and Increasing Rice Yield in Nepal

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Data-driven strategies to improve nitrogen use efficiency of rice farming in South Asia

  Nature Sustainability · 2025-01-06 · 35 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Increasing nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) in agricultural production mitigates climate change, limits water pollution and reduces fertilizer subsidy costs. Nevertheless, strategies for increasing NUE without jeopardizing food security are uncertain in globally important cropping systems. Here we analyse a novel dataset of more than 31,000 farmer fields spanning the Terai of Nepal, Bangladesh’s floodplains and four major rice-producing regions of India. Results indicate that 55% of rice farmers overuse nitrogen fertilizer, and hence the region could save 18 kg of nitrogen per hectare without compromising rice yield. Disincentivizing this excess nitrogen application presents the most impactful pathway for increasing NUE. Addressing yield constraints unrelated to crop nutrition can also improve NUE, most promisingly through earlier transplanting and improving water management, and this secondary pathway was overlooked in the IPCC’s 2022 report on climate change mitigation. Combining nitrogen input reduction with changes to agronomic management could increase rice production in South Asia by 8% while reducing environmental pollution from nitrogen fertilizer, measured as nitrogen surplus, by 36%. Even so, opportunities to improve NUE vary within South Asia, which necessitates sub-regional strategies for sustainable nitrogen management.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Agronomic Enhancements in the Indo-Gangetic Plain Variably Improve Soil Health Depending on Tillage and Residue Management

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Virender Kumar

  48 shared

• R. K. Malik

  International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center

  39 shared

• Anton Urfels

  Wageningen University & Research

  31 shared

• Timothy J. Krupnik

  International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center

  28 shared

• H.S. Jat

  Central Soil Salinity Research Institute

  28 shared

• M.L. Jat

  International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics

  26 shared

• Susan J. Riha

  Cornell University

  24 shared

• Peter Craufurd

  Nepal Agricultural Research Council

  24 shared

Labs

• Systems agronomy for global developmentPI

Awards & honors

• Cornell Atkinson-EDF research awards (2025)
• Cornell Atkinson grants supporting research teams (2024)