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Author Kipling, R.P.; Bannink, A.; Bellocchi, G.; Dalgaard, T.; Fox, N.J.; Hutchings, N.J.; Kjeldsen, C.; Lacetera, N.; Sinabell, F.; Topp, C.F.E.; van Oijen, M.; Virkajärvi, P.; Scollan, N.D.
Title Modeling European ruminant production systems: Facing the challenges of climate change Type Journal Article
Year (down) 2016 Publication Agricultural Systems Abbreviated Journal Agricultural Systems
Volume 147 Issue Pages 24-37
Keywords Food security; Livestock systems; Modeling; Pastoral systems; Policy support; Ruminants
Abstract Ruminant production systems are important producers of food, support rural communities and culture, and help to maintain a range of ecosystem services including the sequestering of carbon in grassland soils. However, these systems also contribute significantly to climate change through greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, while intensi- fication of production has driven biodiversity and nutrient loss, and soil degradation. Modeling can offer insights into the complexity underlying the relationships between climate change, management and policy choices, food production, and the maintenance of ecosystem services. This paper 1) provides an overview of how ruminant systems modeling supports the efforts of stakeholders and policymakers to predict, mitigate and adapt to climate change and 2) provides ideas for enhancing modeling to fulfil this role. Many grassland models can predict plant growth, yield and GHG emissions from mono-specific swards, but modeling multi-species swards, grassland quality and the impact of management changes requires further development. Current livestock models provide a good basis for predicting animal production; linking these with models of animal health and disease is a prior- ity. Farm-scale modeling provides tools for policymakers to predict the emissions of GHG and other pollutants from livestock farms, and to support the management decisions of farmers from environmental and economic standpoints. Other models focus on how policy and associated management changes affect a range of economic and environmental variables at regional, national and European scales. Models at larger scales generally utilise more empirical approaches than those applied at animal, field and farm-scales and include assumptions which may not be valid under climate change conditions. It is therefore important to continue to develop more realistic representations of processes in regional and global models, using the understanding gained from finer-scale modeling. An iterative process of model development, in which lessons learnt from mechanistic models are ap- plied to develop ‘smart’ empirical modeling, may overcome the trade-off between complexity and usability. De- veloping the modeling capacity to tackle the complex challenges related to climate change, is reliant on closer links between modelers and experimental researchers, and also requires knowledge-sharing and increasing technical compatibility across modeling disciplines. Stakeholder engagement throughout the process of model development and application is vital for the creation of relevant models, and important in reducing problems re- lated to the interpretation of modeling outcomes. Enabling modeling to meet the demands of policymakers and other stakeholders under climate change will require collaboration within adequately-resourced, long-term inter-disciplinary research networks
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0308521x ISBN Medium Review
Area Expedition Conference
Notes LiveM, ft_macsur Approved no
Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4734
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Author Liu, X.; Lehtonen, H.; Purola, T.; Pavlova, Y.; Rötter, R.; Palosuo, T.
Title Dynamic economic modelling of crop rotations with farm management practices under future pest pressure Type Journal Article
Year (down) 2016 Publication Agricultural Systems Abbreviated Journal Agricultural Systems
Volume 144 Issue Pages 65-76
Keywords Farm management; Dynamic optimization; Crop rotation; Risk aversion; Climate change; Prices; climate-change; sequester carbon; changing climate; food security; challenge; Finland; ensembles; systems; europe; tool
Abstract Agricultural practice is facing multiple challenges under volatile commodity markets, inevitable climate change, mounting pest pressure and various other environment-related constraints. The objective of this research is to present a dynamic optimization model of crop rotations and farm management and show its suitability for economic analysis over a 30 year time period. In this model, we include management practices such as fertilization, fungicide treatment and liming, and apply it in a region in Southwestern Finland. Results show that (i) growing pest pressure favours the cultivation of wheat-oats and wheat-oilseeds combinations, while (ii) market prices largely determine the crops in the rotation plan and the specific management practices adopted. The flexibility of our model can also be utilized in evaluating the value of other management options such as new cultivars under different projections of future climate and market conditions.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0308521x ISBN Medium Article
Area Expedition Conference
Notes CropM, TradeM, ftnotmacsur Approved no
Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4719
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Author Schauberger, B.; Rolinski, S.; Müller, C.
Title A network-based approach for semi-quantitative knowledge mining and its application to yield variability Type Journal Article
Year (down) 2016 Publication Environmental Research Letters Abbreviated Journal Environ. Res. Lett.
Volume 11 Issue 12 Pages 123001
Keywords yield variability; crop models; interaction network; plant process; wheat; maize; rice; Global Food Security; Climate-Change; Crop Production; Stress Tolerance; Wheat Yields; Heat-Stress; Temperature Variability; Environmental-Factors; United-States; Elevated CO2
Abstract Variability of crop yields is detrimental for food security. Under climate change its amplitude is likely to increase, thus it is essential to understand the underlying causes and mechanisms. Crop models are the primary tool to project future changes in crop yields under climate change. Asystematic overview of drivers and mechanisms of crop yield variability (YV) can thus inform crop model development and facilitate improved understanding of climate change impacts on crop yields. Yet there is a vast body of literature on crop physiology and YV, which makes a prioritization of mechanisms for implementation in models challenging. Therefore this paper takes on a novel approach to systematically mine and organize existing knowledge from the literature. The aim is to identify important mechanisms lacking in models, which can help to set priorities in model improvement. We structure knowledge from the literature in a semi-quantitative network. This network consists of complex interactions between growing conditions, plant physiology and crop yield. We utilize the resulting network structure to assign relative importance to causes of YV and related plant physiological processes. As expected, our findings confirm existing knowledge, in particular on the dominant role of temperature and precipitation, but also highlight other important drivers of YV. More importantly, our method allows for identifying the relevant physiological processes that transmit variability in growing conditions to variability in yield. We can identify explicit targets for the improvement of crop models. The network can additionally guide model development by outlining complex interactions between processes and by easily retrieving quantitative information for each of the 350 interactions. We show the validity of our network method as a structured, consistent and scalable dictionary of literature. The method can easily be applied to many other research fields.
Address 2017-04-07
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1748-9326 ISBN Medium Review
Area Expedition Conference
Notes CropM, ft_macsur Approved no
Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4942
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Author Trnka, M.; Hlavinka, P.; Semenov, M.A.
Title Adaptation options for wheat in Europe will be limited by increased adverse weather events under climate change Type Journal Article
Year (down) 2015 Publication Journal of the Royal Society Interface Abbreviated Journal J. R. Soc. Interface
Volume 12 Issue 112 Pages 20150721
Keywords climate change; extreme events; food security; winter wheat
Abstract Ways of increasing the production of wheat, the most widely grown cereal crop, will need to be found to meet the increasing demand caused by human population growth in the coming decades. This increase must occur despite the decrease in yield gains now being reported in some regions, increased price volatility and the expected increase in the frequency of adverse weather events that can reduce yields. However, if and how the frequency of adverse weather events will change over Europe, the most important wheat-growing area, has not yet been analysed. Here, we show that the accumulated probability of 11 adverse weather events with the potential to significantly reduce yield will increase markedly across all of Europe. We found that by the end of the century, the exposure of the key European wheat-growing areas, where most wheat production is currently concentrated, may increase more than twofold. However, if we consider the entire arable land area of Europe, a greater than threefold increase in risk was predicted. Therefore, shifting wheat production to new producing regions to reduce the risk might not be possible as the risk of adverse events beyond the key wheat-growing areas increases even more. Furthermore, we found a marked increase in wheat exposure to high temperatures, severe droughts and field inaccessibility compared with other types of adverse events. Our results also showed the limitations of some of the presently debated adaptation options and demonstrated the need for development of region-specific strategies. Other regions of the world could be affected by adverse weather events in the future in a way different from that considered here for Europe. This observation emphasizes the importance of conducting similar analyses for other major wheat regions.
Address 2016-10-31
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1742-5689 1742-5662 ISBN Medium Article
Area Expedition Conference
Notes CropM, ft_macsur Approved no
Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4819
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Author Weindl, I.; Lotze-Campen, H.; Popp, A.; Müller, C.; Havlík, P.; Herrero, M.; Schmitz, C.; Rolinski, S.
Title Livestock in a changing climate: production system transitions as an adaptation strategy for agriculture Type Journal Article
Year (down) 2015 Publication Environmental Research Letters Abbreviated Journal Environ. Res. Lett.
Volume 10 Issue 9 Pages 094021
Keywords livestock; climate impacts; land use modeling; adaptation costs; production systems; greenhouse-gas emissions; global change; management implications; developing-countries; crop productivity; change mitigation; food security; model; impacts; carbon
Abstract Livestock farming is the world’s largest land use sector and utilizes around 60% of the global biomass harvest. Over the coming decades, climate change will affect the natural resource base of livestock production, especially the productivity of rangeland and feed crops. Based on a comprehensive impact modeling chain, we assess implications of different climate projections for agricultural production costs and land use change and explore the effectiveness of livestock system transitions as an adaptation strategy. Simulated climate impacts on crop yields and rangeland productivity generate adaptation costs amounting to 3% of total agricultural production costs in 2045 (i.e. 145 billion US$). Shifts in livestock production towards mixed crop-livestock systems represent a resource-and cost-efficient adaptation option, reducing agricultural adaptation costs to 0.3% of total production costs and simultaneously abating deforestation by about 76 million ha globally. The relatively positive climate impacts on grass yields compared with crop yields favor grazing systems inter alia in South Asia and North America. Incomplete transitions in production systems already have a strong adaptive and cost reducing effect: a 50% shift to mixed systems lowers agricultural adaptation costs to 0.8%. General responses of production costs to system transitions are robust across different global climate and crop models as well as regarding assumptions on CO2 fertilization, but simulated values show a large variation. In the face of these uncertainties, public policy support for transforming livestock production systems provides an important lever to improve agricultural resource management and lower adaptation costs, possibly even contributing to emission reduction.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1748-9326 ISBN Medium Article
Area Expedition Conference
Notes LiveM, ft_macsur Approved no
Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4718
Permanent link to this record