Rising temperatures to see wheat and barley yields drop 20%
The authors of the report, Frances Moore and Prof David Lobell, believe European farmers can slow the decline of some crops if they adapt their techniques. Farmers are advised to plan to switch to crops that perform better in higher temperatures, among other “adaptation” responses.
“By adaptation, we mean a range of options based on existing technologies, such as switching varieties of a crop, installing irrigation or growing a different crop, one better suited to warmer temperatures,” said Prof Lobell, the associate director of the Centre on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University. “These things have been talked about for a long time, but the novelty of this study was using past data to quantify the actual potential of adaptation to reduce climate change impacts.”
Corn yields are expected to fall by 10% by 2040. Rises in temperatures have seen EU-wide corn outputs falling steadily from 1980 onwards, though the Stanford report also cites some EU policy decisions and economic factors as playing a role in reducing yields.
“The results clearly showed modest amounts of climate change can have a big impact on yields of several crops in Europe,” said Frances Moore, a doctoral researcher in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Programme in Environment and Resources. Ms Moore conducted the research in partnership with Prof Lobell. She described the report’s results as surprising, given that Europe is considered to be relatively cool.
“You might think it would benefit from moderate amounts of warming,” she said. “Our next step was to actually measure the potential of European farmers to adapt to these impacts.”
Moore and Lobell analysed yield and profit records from thousands of EU farms from 1989 to 2009. This data featured in the EU’s annual Farmer Accountancy Data Network survey. Combining detailed climate records with the farm data, they were able to understand how yields and profits have changed over time.
By comparing yields in warmer and cooler parts of Europe, they could predict how adaptation may help European farmers in the coming decades. Their research is detailed in the latest issue of the journal, Nature Climate Change.
Moore and Lobell predict corn farmers can cut yield losses by as much as 87% via long-term adaptation.
The report notes that three key areas of uncertainty make it difficult to predict the future of crop yields in Europe. Most scientists focus on the uncertainty around future climate conditions, but the Stanford team found that the biggest issues are often how quickly farmers in Europe can adapt to climate change (which they term ‘adaptation uncertainty’) and how crop yields will respond to climate change (‘response uncertainty’).
