|
|
Lehtonen, H. (2015). Evaluating adaptation and the production development of Finnish agriculture in climate and global change. Agricultural and Food Science, 24(3), 219–234.
Abstract: Agricultural product prices and policies influence the development of crop yields under climate change through farm level management decisions. On this basis, five main scenarios were specified for agricultural commodity prices and crop yields. An economic agricultural sector model was used in order to assess the impacts of the scenarios on production, land use and farm income in Finland. The results suggest that falling crop yields, if realized due to low prices and restrictive policies, will result in decreasing crop and livestock production and increasing nutrient surplus. Slowly increasing crop yields could stabilise production and increase farm income. Significantly higher crop prices and yields are required, however, for any marked increase in production in Finland. Cereals production would increase relatively more than livestock production, if there were high prices for agricultural products. This is explained by abundant land resources, a high opportunity cost of labour and policies maintaining current dairy and beef production.
|
|
|
|
Bennetzen, E. H., Smith, P., Soussana, J. - F., & Porter, J. R. (2012). Identity-based estimation of greenhouse gas emissions from crop production: case study from Denmark. European Journal of Agronomy, 41, 66–72.
Abstract: In order to feed the world we need innovative thinking on how to increase agricultural production whilst also mitigating climate change. Agriculture and land-use change are responsible for approximately one-third of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions but hold potential for climate change mitigation but are only tangentially included in UNFCCC mitigation policies. To get a full estimate of GHG emissions from agricultural crop production both energy-based emissions and land-based emissions need to be accounted for. Furthermore, the major mitigation potential is likely to be indirect reduction of emissions i.e. reducing emissions per unit of agricultural product rather than the absolute emissions per se. Hence the system productivity must be included in the same analysis. This paper presents the Kaya-Porter identity, derived from the Maya identity, as a new way to calculate GHG emissions from agricultural crop production by deconstructing emissions into five elements; the GHG intensity of the energy used for production (kg CO2-eq./MJ), energy intensity of the production (MJ/kg dry matter), areal productivity (kg dry matter/ha), areal land-based GHG emissions (CO2-eq./ha) and area (ha). These separate elements in the identity can be targeted in emissions reduction and mitigation policies and are useful to analyse past and current trends in emissions and to explore future scenarios. Using the Kaya-Porter identity we have performed a case study on Danish crop production and find emissions to have been reduced by 12% from 1992 to 2008, whilst yields per unit area have remained constant. Both land-based emissions and energy-based emissions have decreased, mainly due to a 41% reduction in nitrogen fertilizer use. The initial identity based analysis for crop production presented here needs to be extended to include livestock to reflect the entire agricultural production and food demand sectors, thereby permitting analysis of the trade-offs between animal and plant food production, human dietary preferences and population and resulting GHG emissions. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
|
|
|
|
Yin, X., Olesen, J. E., Wang, M., Kersebaum, K. - C., Chen, H., Baby, S., et al. (2016). Adapting maize production to drought in the Northeast Farming Region of China. European Journal of Agronomy, 77, 47–58.
Abstract: Maize (Zea mays L.) is the most prominent crop in the Northeast Farming Region of China (NFR), and drought has been the largest limitation for maize production in this area during recent decades. The question of how to adapt maize production to drought has received great attention from policy makers, researchers and farmers. In order to evaluate the effects of adaptation strategies against drought and examine the influences of policy supports and farmer households’ characteristics on adopting decisions, a large scale household survey was conducted in five representative maize production counties across NFR. Our survey results indicated that using variety diversification, drought resistant varieties and dibbling irrigation are the three major adaptation strategies against drought in spring, and farmers also adopted changes in sowing time, conservation tillage and mulching to cope with drought in spring. About 20% and 18% of households enhanced irrigation against drought in summer and autumn, respectively. Deep loosening tillage and organic fertilizer are also options for farmers to resist drought in summer. Maize yield was highly dependent on soil qualities, with yields on land of high soil quality approximately 1050 kg/ha and 2400 kg/ha higher than for normal and poor soil conditions, respectively. Using variety diversification and drought resistant varieties can respectively increase maize yield by approximately 150 and 220 kg/ha under drought. Conservation tillage increased maize yield by 438–459 kg/ha in drought years. Irrigation improved maize yield by 419–435 kg/ha and 444–463 kg/ha against drought in summer and autumn, respectively. Offering information service, financial and technical support can greatly increase the use of adaptation strategies for farmers to cope with drought. However, only 46% of households received information service, 43% of households received financial support, and 26% of households received technical support against drought from the local government. The maize acreage and the irrigation access are the major factors that influenced farmers’ decisions to apply adaptation strategies to cope with drought in each season, but only 25% of households have access to irrigation. This indicates the need for enhanced public support for farmers to better cope with drought in maize production, particularly through improving access to irrigation.
|
|
|
|
Holman, I. P., Brown, C., Janes, V., & Sandars, D. (2017). Can we be certain about future land use change in Europe? A multi-scenario, integrated-assessment analysis. Agric. Syst., 151, 126–135.
Abstract: The global land system is facing unprecedented pressures from growing human populations and climatic change. Understanding the effects these pressures may have is necessary to designing land management strategies that ensure food security, ecosystem service provision and successful climate mitigation and adaptation. However, the number of complex, interacting effects involved makes any complete understanding very difficult to achieve. Nevertheless, the recent development of integrated modelling frameworks allows for the exploration of the co-development of human and natural systems under scenarios of global change, potentially illuminating the main drivers and processes in future land system change. Here, we use one such integrated modelling framework (the CLIMSAVE Integrated Assessment Platform) to investigate the range of projected outcomes in the European land system across climatic and socio-economic scenarios for the 2050s. We find substantial consistency in locations and types of change even under the most divergent conditions, with results suggesting that climate change alone will lead to a contraction in the agricultural and forest area within Europe, particularly in southern Europe. This is partly offset by the introduction of socioeconomic changes that change both the demand for agricultural production, through changing food demand and net imports, and the efficiency of agricultural production. Simulated extensification and abandonment in the Mediterranean region is driven by future decreases in the relative profitability of the agricultural sector in southern Europe, owing to decreased productivity as a consequence of increased heat and drought stress and reduced irrigation water availability. The very low likelihood (<33% probability) that current land use proportions in many parts of Europe will remain unchanged suggests that future policy should seek to promote and support the multifunctional role of agriculture and forests in different European regions, rather than focusing on increased productivity as a route to agricultural and forestry viability.
|
|
|
|
Cortignani, R., & Dono, G. (2018). Agricultural policy and climate change: An integrated assessment of the impacts on an agricultural area of Southern Italy. Environ. Sci. Pol., 81, 26–35.
Abstract: The European Union (EU) has recently reformed its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and, in parallel, has completely abolished the production quotas for milk. These changes will have important consequences for the use of land, of inputs (i.e., water and chemicals) and on the economic performance of rural areas. It is of interest to evaluate the integrated impact of these modifications and of climate change (CC), since the latter could neutralize or reverse some desired effects of the former. For this purpose, this paper evaluates the potential impact of the abolition of milk quotas, as well as of the reform of the first pillar of CAP in two different climate scenarios (present and near future). A bio-economic model simulates the possible adaptation of various farm types in an agricultural area of Southern Italy to these changes, given the available technological options and current market conditions. The main results show that the considered policy changes have small positive impacts on economic and environmental factors of the study area. However, some farm types are more affected. CC can effectively attenuate or reverse several of those effects, especially in some farm types. These results can inform the planning of future changes to the CAP, which will have to act in the context of deeper climate alteration.
|
|
