Van den Pol-van Dasselaar, A., Evers, A., & De Haan, M. (2014). Modelling emissions of greenhouse gases from dairy farms in the Netherlands using DairyWise. FACCE MACSUR Mid-term Scientific Conference, 3(S) Sassari, Italy.
Abstract: The DairyWise model (Schils et al., 2007) is an empirical model that simulates technical, environmental, and financial processes on a dairy farm. The central component is the FeedSupply model that balances the herd requirements, as generated by the DairyHerd model, and the supply of home-grown feeds, as generated by the crop models for grassland and silage maize. The GrassGrowth model predicts the daily rate of DM accumulation of grass, including several feed quality parameters. Depending on (daily) grazing, the amount of grass silage is calculated which also leads to the purchase (or sale) of roughage. The final output is a farm plan describing cattle performance, crop yield, grazing, feeding, and nutrient flows and the consequences on the environment and economy. The capabilities of DairyWise will be illustrated at the MACSUR meeting in Sassari with results of dairy farming in the Netherlands: farm characteristics, economics, NPK balances and greenhouse gas emissions.
|
Van den Pol-van Dasselaar, A., Bellocchi, G., Hutchings, N., Olesen, J., & Saetnan, E. (2014). AnimalChange. FACCE MACSUR Mid-term Scientific Conference, 3(S) Sassari, Italy.
Abstract: The EU-FP7 project AnimalChange (AN Integration of Mitigation and Adaptation options for sustainable Livestock production under climate CHANGE, http://www.animalchange.eu, 2011-2015) addresses mitigation and adaptation options and provides scientific guidance for their integration in sustainable development pathways for livestock production under climate change in Europe, Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. The project provides insights, innovations, tools and models for livestock production incorporating socio-economic and environmental (particularly GHG emission) variables. Scenario studies are carried out at scales ranging from animal and pasture, to farm and to region, for given management options. A wide range of livestock production systems is included in the project. The core analytical spine of the project is a series of coupled biophysical and socio-economic models combined with experimentation. This allows exploring future scenarios for the livestock sector under baseline and atmospheric CO2 stabilization scenarios. These scenarios are first constructed and then elaborated and enriched by breakthrough mitigation and adaptation options at field and animal scales, integrated and evaluated at farm scale and finally used to assess policy options and their socio-economic consequences. The modelling results are useful for governments, agricultural and food industry and the agricultural sector (farmers). There are many synergies between the European activities of AnimalChange and those of the LiveM theme of MACSUR, in particular with respect to access to livestock production datasets, dialogue with stakeholders and comparison and integration of grassland and livestock models with crop and socio-economic models in pilot studies at a variety of scales.
|
Van den Pol-van Dasselaar, A. (2014). Stakeholder consultation on functions of grasslands in Europe. FACCE MACSUR Mid-term Scientific Conference, 3(S) Sassari, Italy.
Abstract: Active participation of stakeholders was one of the key objectives of the FP7-funded project MultiSward (Grant Agreement n° FP7-244983). MultiSward aimed to increase the reliance of farmers on grasslands and on multi-species swards for competitive and sustainable ruminant production systems. Stakeholders were consulted via international and national meetings. Furthermore, an on-line questionnaire on the functions of grasslands was developed in eight languages and almost 2000 valid responses were obtained from European stakeholders. All of the stakeholder groups that were identified as being important in the stakeholder analysis responded to the questionnaire: primary producers, policy makers, researchers, advisors, NGO’s (for nature conservation and for protection of the environment), industry (mainly processing and seed industry) and education. This method of stakeholder consultation will be illustrated using the results on appreciation of the following functions of grasslands: adaptation to climate change, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration.
|
Valin, H., Sands, R. D., van der Mensbrugghe, D. and, Nelson, G. C., Ahammad, H., Blanc, E., et al. (2014). The future of food demand: Understanding differences in global economic models. Agric. Econ., 45(1), 51–67.
Abstract: Understanding the capacity of agricultural systems to feed the world population under climate change requires projecting future food demand. This article reviews demand modeling approaches from 10 global economic models participating in the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP). We compare food demand projections in 2050 for various regions and agricultural products under harmonized scenarios of socioeconomic development, climate change, and bioenergy expansion. In the reference scenario (SSP2), food demand increases by 59-98% between 2005 and 2050, slightly higher than the most recent FAO projection of 54% from 2005/2007. The range of results is large, in particular for animal calories (between 61% and 144%), caused by differences in demand systems specifications, and in income and price elasticities. The results are more sensitive to socioeconomic assumptions than to climate change or bioenergy scenarios. When considering a world with higher population and lower economic growth (SSP3), consumption per capita drops on average by 9\% for crops and 18% for livestock. The maximum effect of climate change on calorie availability is -6% at the global level, and the effect of biofuel production on calorie availability is even smaller.
|
|
Twardy, S., & Kopacz, M. (2014). Comparison of Concentrations and Loads of Macronutrients Brought with Precipitation and Leaching from the Soil Profile..
|
