FACCE MACSUR Reports (Modelling European Agriculture with Climate Change for Food Security)
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An approach to sustainability management within partnerships between heterogeneous actors – example from a Danish water catchment, dominated by dairy farms
No full textIn this paper we present an approach to sustainability management within partnerships between heterogenous actors. This multi-disciplinary approach is also relevant for the assessment of climate change adaptation and mitigation in the context of www.macsur.eu; and especially in areas with dairy farming hot-spots. Established approaches within this field such as Adaptive Co-Management and Social Learning focus on social-material interactions, feedback mechanisms, knowledge integration and institutional change as drivers in sustainable development. However, the role of micro-scale power dynamics as part of these processes have received less attention. In a case study of land-water management in a Danish water catchment, dominated by dairy farms, we analyze how dynamics of power within knowledge integration processes interacts with institutions at different scales. Thereby, we show ways in which power-knowledge dynamics shape development outcomes. Finally, we propose how increasing reflexivity of power-knowledge dynamics might contribute to institutional change and sustainable development
The importance of climate and policy uncertainty in Norwegian agriculture
Get PDFThe paper addresses future climate and policy uncertainty for agricultural production and food security in Norway. The two crop simulation models, CSM-CERES-Wheat and, the LINGRA model, were used to determine the impact of climate change on grain yield of spring wheat, and harvest security and biomass yield of timothy, an important forage grass in Northern Europe, respectively. Harvestable yield distributions from the crop models were fed into a stochastic version of the economic sector model Jordmod. Distributions of the rates of agricultural subsidies rates were assessed based on past policy changes and prospective reforms. The model was used to assess the effects of both climate and policy uncertainty on agricultural production, land use, and national food security. Jordmod is comprised of a supply module in which stochastic profits for more than 300 regional farms are maximized and a deterministic market module which maximizes social welfare in the agricultural sector. Socio-economic scenarios were developed around the level of ambition of Norwegian agricultural policy makers. The model results were contrasted with the deterministic results based on average yield and payment rates. The innovation of this paper lays in assessing the combined effects of future climate and policy uncertainty for the agricultural sector in Norway. It also highlights the potential errors made by neglecting these types of uncertainty in economic modelling
Regional impacts of climate change, observations and projections. Finnish Pilot study: North Savo region
Get PDFRegional adjustment of regulation is important (eg. water protection) Due to expected growing yield potential fertilisation restrictions need adjustmentNitrate directive restricts efficient and sustainable grass productionGreening practices have only slight – and partly negative - impact on ruminant production (permanent grassland not suitable for northern conditions)Inefficient markets for agricultural land cause difficulties for farms that are increasing their productionCapitalisation of area payments to land prices + incentives for extensification (e.g. nature management and other set aside schemes under pillar 2) fit better part-time crop farms, not full-time livestock farmsthey express frustration on weak land supplyProduction based support for suckler cows and (dairy originated) beef production is vital for producersNo significant increase in production expected, budgetary limits of coupled support
"The Food Equation": Taking a long/term View on World Agriculture, Climate Change and Food Security
Get PDFAssessing the availability of data on grassland Carbon sequestration in Europe
No full textThe role of grasslands in the sequestration of atmospheric Carbon represents an important benefit of extensive livestock systems based on permanent grasslands. The accurate modelling of such systems is key to understanding their potential in mitigating GHG emissions, and this in turn relies on access to high quality data. Here, the availability of Carbon sequestration data for EU grasslands is investigated, using information gathered from reviews of journal papers and EU project outputs. The challenges involved in providing information on datasets to modellers are discussed, and the next steps in the gathering and sharing of meta-data are defined
Climate change adaptation: a farm level model to assess investment decisions in water storage
No full textOne of the potential measures suggested to cope with the changes induced by Climate Change (CC) is the construction of rainwater harvesting reservoirs (Bozzola and Swanson, n.d.). The literature has focused mostly on the water allocation management but it overlooks at the structure of the investment decision. We analyse the investment decision in water storage facilities, for different farming specialization and under different climatic scenarios to assess the option value of the investment. We take an interdisciplinary approach integrating climate, agronomic and economic models. CC effects are assessed by a downscale of the A1B scenario of the IPCC (Tomozeiu et al., 2010). The resulting estimated temperatures and rainfall levels are then introduced in an agronomic model, which determines the irrigation water quantity and timing for a number of crops. Finally all these elements are included in a farm level economics model, DHYMORA (Viaggi et al., 2010). The model is applied to typical farm specializations in eastern Emilia-Romagna, including both annual and perennial crops
Integrated land use modelling of climate change impacts – preliminary results from two Austrian case study landscapes
No full textWe present an integrated land use modelling framework (ILM) to analyze impacts of climate change and CAP reform as well as farm adaptation using economic, biotic and abiotic indicators at field, farm and landscape scales. The IML is applied on the two contrasting landscapes in the Austrian MACSUR regional pilot study. The scenarios cover climate and policy changes until 2040. The anticipated policy changes lead to declines in farm gross margins by -36% and -5% in the two landscapes, respectively. In contrast, climate change leads to higher gross margins, where farms can reach pre-reform levels on average. Environmental impacts such as removing of landscape elements and increasing fertilization can be moderated by an agri-environmental program, but the opportunity costs of program participation may increase
Prototype stochastic general equilibrium model of a global food system
Get PDFA model of a global food system need at least two points in time per year and two locations with different growing seasons so that planting and harvesting have different timing across locations. Moreover, planting decisions reflect soil states affected by stochastic weather since previous point in time, while harvest reflect the planting decisions and the stochastic weather through the growing season up to next point. Decisions on trade, storage and consumption are taken at every point in time. Despite stochastic influence, deterministic stationary general equilibrium is applicable. The world then runs in circles through a likely sequence of N given weather scenarios, while the decision-makers do not know the next scenario. The model will provide a setting in which the consequences of climate change can be assessed both with respect to expectations and variances. It will by construction be an integrated assessment model (IAM) in the sense that outcomes follow from agent choices in a world of biophysical processes. In this case the biophysical world is stochastic. At the prototype stage neither existing behavioral nor bio-physical models will be applied
Comparing visions for CAP reforms post 2015: Farmer intentions and farm bio-economic modelling
Get PDFThis paper illustrates the impacts of two of the potential CAP reform post 2015 scenarios using an optimising farm level model and compares results with farmers’ perception about the policy changes, captured in a farmer intentions survey. The model results suggest that beef farms suffer a loss in farm net margins under fully decoupled (up to -21%) as well as under partially decoupled scenario (up to -19%) compared to current historical single farm payments. The model also shows that farm respond by reducing the number of beef animals on farm by up to 5%. However, under a partial decoupled scenario, beef farms increase calf numbers by 15% to benefit from coupled calf payment. A survey of 1,400 beef producers with respect to their intentions toward 2020 was conducted in the Summer of 2013. A set of hypothetical payment scenarios was used to test self-reported response to a number of scenarios related to expanding and extensifying. These were compared with the modelling results and found a range of responses which could, we argue, be used for future calibration and ‘sense-checking’ of results within future modelling strategies
Spillovers between MACSUR and Austrian climate change research projects
Get PDFThe Austrian regional case study in MACSUR extends the methods and builds upon the results of the CC-ILA project. CC-ILA enables cooperation between landscape planners and landscape ecologists to analyse mitigation and adaptation strategies for sustainable rural land use and landscape developments in a case study landscape. Subsequent research in MACSUR includes analysis towards rural development and the improvement of the climate impact data base for grasslands. The latter is achieved by collaborating with Crop-M partner LFZ Raumberg-Gumpenstein, who is able to utilize spill-overs within the Agromet-Monitor project