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Stevanović, M., Popp, A., Lotze-Campen, H., Dietrich, J. P., Müller, C., Bonsch, M., et al. (2016). The impact of high-end climate change on agricultural welfare. Sci. Adv., 2(8), e1501452.
Abstract: Climate change threatens agricultural productivity worldwide, resulting in higher food prices. Associated economic gains and losses differ not only by region but also between producers and consumers and are affected by market dynamics. On the basis of an impact modeling chain, starting with 19 different climate projections that drive plant biophysical process simulations and ending with agro-economic decisions, this analysis focuses on distributional effects of high-end climate change impacts across geographic regions and across economic agents. By estimating the changes in surpluses of consumers and producers, we find that climate change can have detrimental impacts on global agricultural welfare, especially after 2050, because losses in consumer surplus generally outweigh gains in producer surplus. Damage in agriculture may reach the annual loss of 0.3% of future total gross domestic product at the end of the century globally, assuming further opening of trade in agricultural products, which typically leads to interregional production shifts to higher latitudes. Those estimated global losses could increase substantially if international trade is more restricted. If beneficial effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide fertilization can be realized in agricultural production, much of the damage could be avoided. Although trade policy reforms toward further liberalization help alleviate climate change impacts, additional compensation mechanisms for associated environmental and development concerns have to be considered.
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Trnka, M., Feng, S., Semenov, M. A., Olesen, J. E., Kersebaum, K. C., Roetter, R. P., et al. (2019). Mitigation efforts will not fully alleviate the increase in water scarcity occurrence probability in wheat-producing areas. Sci. Adv., 5(9), eaau2406.
Abstract: Global warming is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of severe water scarcity (SWS) events, which negatively affect rain-fed crops such as wheat, a key source of calories and protein for humans. Here, we develop a method to simultaneously quantify SWS over the world’s entire wheat-growing area and calculate the probabilities of multiple/sequential SWS events for baseline and future climates. Our projections show that, without climate change mitigation (representative concentration pathway 8.5), up to 60% of the current wheat-growing area will face simultaneous SWS events by the end of this century, compared to 15% today. Climate change stabilization in line with the Paris Agreement would substantially reduce the negative effects, but they would still double between 2041 and 2070 compared to current conditions. Future assessments of production shocks in food security should explicitly include the risk of severe, prolonged, and near- simultaneous droughts across key world wheat-producing areas.
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Shrestha, S., Ciaian, P., Himics, M., & van Doorslaer, B. (2013). Impacts of climate change on EU agriculture. Review of Agricultural and Applied Economics, 16(2), 24–39.
Abstract: The current paper investigates the medium term economic impact of climate changes on the EU agriculture. The yield change data under climate change scenarios are taken from the BIOMA (Biophysical Models Application) simulation environment. We employ CAPRI modelling framework to identify the EU aggregate economic effects as well as regional impacts. We take into account supply and market price adjustments of the EU agricultural sector as well as technical adaptation of crops to climate change. Overall results indicate an increase in yields and production level in the EU agricultural sector due to the climate change. In general, there are relatively small effects at the EU aggregate. For example, the value of land use and welfare change by approximately between -2% and 0.2%. However, there is a stronger impact at regional level with some stronger effects prevailing particularly in the Central and Northern EU and smaller impacts are observed in Southern Europe. Regional impacts of climate change vary by a factor higher up to 10 relative to the aggregate EU impacts. The price adjustments reduce the response of agricultural sector to climate change in particular with respect to production and income changes. The technical adaption of crops to climate change may result in a change production and land use by a factor between 1.4 and 6 relative to no-adaptation situation.
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Schmitz, C., Kreidenweis, U., Lotze-Campen, H., Popp, A., Krause, M., Dietrich, J. P., et al. (2014). Agricultural trade and tropical deforestation: interactions and related policy options. Reg Environ Change, 15(8), 1757–1772.
Abstract: The extensive clearing of tropical forests throughout past decades has been partly assigned to increased trade in agricultural goods. Since further trade liberalisation can be expected, remaining rainforests are likely to face additional threats with negative implications for climate mitigation and the local environment. We apply a spatially explicit economic land-use model coupled to a biophysical vegetation model to examine linkages and associated policies between trade and tropical deforestation in the future. Results indicate that further trade liberalisation leads to an expansion of deforestation in Amazonia due to comparative advantages of agriculture in South America. Globally, between 30 and 60 million ha (5-10 %) of tropical rainforests would be cleared additionally, leading to 20-40 Gt additional emissions by 2050. By applying different forest protection policies, those values could be reduced substantially. Most effective would be the inclusion of avoided deforestation into a global emissions trading scheme. Carbon prices corresponding to the concentration target of 550 ppm would prevent deforestation after 2020. Investing in agricultural productivity reduces pressure on tropical forests without the necessity of direct protection. In general, additional trade-induced demand from developed and emerging countries should be compensated by international efforts to protect natural resources in tropical regions.
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Mandryk, M., Reidsma, P., Kanellopoulos, A., Groot, J. C. J., & van Ittersum, M. K. (2014). The role of farmers’ objectives in current farm practices and adaptation preferences: a case study in Flevoland, the Netherlands. Reg Environ Change, 14(4), 1463–1478.
Abstract: The diversity in farmers’ objectives and responses to external drivers is usually not considered in integrated assessment studies that investigate impacts and adaptation to climate and socio-economic change. Here, we present an approach to assess how farmers’ stated objectives relate to their currently implemented practices and to preferred adaptation options, and we discuss what this implies for assessments of future changes. We based our approach on a combination of multi-criteria decision-making methods. We consistently assessed the importance of farmers’ objectives and adaptation preferences from what farmers say (based on interviews), from what farmers actually do (by analysing current farm performance) and from what farmers want (through a selected alternative farm plan). Our study was performed for six arable farms in Flevoland, a province in the Netherlands. Based on interviews with farmers, we reduced the long list of possible objectives to the most important ones. The objectives we assessed included maximization of economic result and soil organic matter, and minimization of gross margin variance, working hours and nitrogen balance. In our sample, farmers’ stated preferences in objectives were often not fully reflected in realized farming practices. Adaptation preferences of farmers largely resembled their current performance, but generally involved a trend towards stated preferences. Our results suggest that in Flevoland, although farmers do have more objectives, in practical decision-making they focus on economic result maximization, while for strategic decision-making they account for objectives influencing long-term performance and indicators associated with sustainability, in this case soil organic matter.
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