Abstract: TradeM will organise a session to plan for the three regional pilot studies. Focus will be on the expected outcomes until early 2015 (e.g. progress in farm modelling, and other scientific advancements – uncertainty, model integration). In addition to the planning of the regional pilot studies for the remaining year in MACSUR, we will also elaborate proposals for the years 2015-2017. Moreover, the session will enable research groups to present and discuss their plans for cross-theme investigations.

Abstract: This paper addresses protein crop production in Europe. European food and feed industries highly depend on imported protein crops and derived products and climate change is likely to affect domestic protein crop production and thus the import dependency. The recent reform of EU agricultural policy reform aims at promoting climate friendly agricultural practices and stimulating the production of protein crops. We choose three contrasting climate change scenarios as well as specifications of the recent CAP reform in order to investigate how farmers might adapt to changing land use restrictions and climate conditions. Output response, land allocation and nitrogen use are the main variables of interest. Exemplified for Austrian cropland, we apply an integrated modeling framework consisting of a statistical climate change model, a crop rotation model, the bio-physical process model EPIC, and the economic bottom-up land use optimization model BiomAT. This model maximizes total gross margins by optimizing for land use and crop management practices for different scenarios of climate change and market conditions. Results obtained at a 1 km grid are aggregated to the national level. The model results indicate that changes in policy conditions, cropland use, and flexibility in crop management practices may have stronger effects on total protein crop production than climate change in the next decades. An expansion of current protein crop production leads to an increase in marginal opportunity costs, reduces mineral fertilizer input demand, and mainly replaces maize in the crop rotations. No Label

Abstract: Some farmers may claim that climate change adaptation is easy compared to the difficulties caused by policiesAction based on weather observations only, is insufficient for farmers to respond to climate change. Researchers need support from farmers in understanding the responses in practice.Policies might be too slow to respond to needs for change in agriculture. Winners and losers seem to be observed everywhere.The impacts of climate change is heterogeneous among farm types and regionsEffects beyond 2050 remain largely unclear, mainly because the effects of extreme events are not consideredVariability of yields is important to farm incomes, but most studies only consider average changesFarmers are ready to design their site-specific adaptation response providing that new knowledge and learning spaces are available. A learning process based on integrated models, assessment of short- and long-term effects, is needed for farmers to adapt to climate change, price fluctuations and policy change. No Label