Abstract: The 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. No Label

Abstract: The precise spatially explicit knowledge about crop yield potentials and yield gaps is essential to guide sustainable intensification of agriculture. In this study, the maize yield potentials from 1980 to 2008 across the major maize production regions of China were firstly estimated by county using ensemble simulation of a well-validated large scale crop model, i.e., MCWLA-Maize model. Then, the temporal and spatial patterns of maize yield potentials and yield gaps during 1980-2008 were presented and analyzed. The results showed that maize yields became stagnated at 32.4% of maize-growing areas during the period. In the major maize production regions, i.e., northeastern China, the North China Plain (NCP) and southwestern China, yield gap percentages were generally less than 40% and particularly less than 20% in some areas. By contrast, in northern and southern China, where actual yields were relatively lower, yield gap percentages were generally larger than 40%. The areas with yield gap percentages less than 20% and less than 40% accounted for 8.2% and 27.6% of maize-growing areas, respectively. During the period, yield potentials decreased in the NCP and southwestern China due to increase in temperature and decrease in solar radiation; by contrast, increased in northern, northeastern and southeastern China due to increases in both temperature and solar radiation. Yield gap percentages decreased generally by 2% per year across the major maize production regions, although increased in some areas in northern and northeastern China. The shrinking of yield gap was due to increases in actual yields and decreases in yield potentials in the NCP and southwestern China; and due to larger increases in actual yields than in yield potentials in northeastern and southeastern China. The results highlight the importance of sustainable intensification of agriculture to close yield gaps, as well as breeding new cultivars to increase yield potentials, to meet the increasing food demand. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Abstract: The purpose of this document is to define the protocol for a second study (IRS2) based on impact response surfaces (IRSs) in the frame of CropM/WP4. General considerations of IRS construction are described in the protocol developed for Phase I of the IRS analysis (IRS1)Access to the full document is restricted to MACSUR members until 2015-11-01. No Label