Evidence for wheat, potatoes, and olives
Institute for European Environmental Policy
April 2024
Climate change is happening. The year 2023 was characterised by contrasting extremes which demonstrate this: heavy rains in springtime caused flash floods in many European regions, the Mediterranean suffered under extreme heat and wildfires during the summer, and in September torrential rain and floods devastated Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey, while much of Northern Europe saw heavy winds and flooding in October.
Whilst all economic sectors will be, and already are, impacted by climate change, agriculture is considered particularly vulnerable. The European Union (EU) is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of agricultural products (EEA, 2019) with a large share of the food produced prepared and eaten in kitchens around Europe.
In recent years, the EU output of many key agricultural commodities fell sharply due to widespread droughts and other adverse weather conditions. Without measures to mitigate and adapt to climate impacts, farmers might be forced to switch to alternative crops. In the long run, this could not only change what and how we farm in some regions in Europe but also reshape our national cuisines.
Food is more than nourishment: it is central to European national identities, with culinary diversity often seen as one of the continent’s most appealing characteristics (Anderson et al, 2016). By making agricultural production in Europe more resilient to climate change, we will therefore not only ensure that farming in Europe continues, but we will also contribute to preserving Europe’s diverse regional cuisines.
Whilst agriculture is particularly vulnerable to climate change, it also has a particularly strong adaptation potential (EEA 2024). For instance, projections of climate change on potato yields vary, ranging from global yield declines of 2% to 6% by 2055 (without adaptation) and increases of 9% to 20% globally (with adaptation) by 2050. Building up the resilience of farming systems requires that short and long-term climate adaptation strategies are implemented at different scales, and drawing on a full range of knowledge, financial, technical, and cropping actions, and practices (Alvar-Beltran et al, 2021; Devot et al, 2023). Our review of the evidence for wheat, potatoes and olives found that sustainable cropping practices have the potential to maintain and improve soil and water parameters that can buffer farming systems against current climate risks and adapt to future climatic conditions.
More importantly, the evidence suggests no significant negative impacts on crop outputs when compared to conventional farming methods. The scientific literature shows that the reviewed practices hold significant potential for maintaining, or in some cases, even improving wheat yields, as compared to conventional monocropping. Wheat crops are better able to withstand the negative impacts of hazards, such as heat stress, drought, or pests. For potatoes, field trials with mulching generated increased or at least equal output levels when compared to non-mulched plots, also under hot water scarce conditions. Higher yields of up to 30-40% were reported (Adamchuk et al, 2016).
Mixed/intercropping studies find no negative effects on either the saleable yield or the quality of the potatoes. Field experiments in olive plantations indicate that cover crops, especially when combined with mulching no-tillage, and sustainable pruning, may maintain and even improve olive yields.
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) requires (and compensates) for the uptake of many of these practices through minimum standards, the Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAECs (e.g., GAEC7 on crop rotation). In addition, it incentivises their uptake through e.g., eco-schemes. However, in light of the Ukraine war, Member States were allowed to deviate from mandatory requirements in the name of food security. Since the start of 2023, a major wave of protests by farming organisations in many Member States and Brussels has prompted the European Commission to seek the weakening of mandatory standards on habitat for nature and crop rotation from the current CAP and introducing significant flexibilities to others relating to soil management.
At the same time, the Commission has, from the 1st of January 2014 to the end of 2023, channelled more than €2.5 billion of EU funds to the EU agricultural sector to support farmers impacted by effects from COVID-19, the Ukraine war and extreme weather occurrences, events, which they describe as 9 | Increasing climate change resilience through sustainable agricultural practices multidimensional and unpredictable (European Commission, 2024). However, distributing (more) money to farmers while advocating for lower environmental standards suggests that we are dealing with extraordinary circumstances where a choice needs to be made between protecting biodiversity and ecosystem functions and food security (Willard, 2023). Yet, the evidence and the experience of recent years show that climate change is here to stay, and urgent action is needed to facilitate a transition towards a more resilient European farming sector that has the capacity to operate under and adapt to future climatic conditions.
Our review of the evidence shows that, at least for the studied cropping practices and crops, that sustainable practices have the potential to contribute to the two important societal objectives of maintaining current levels of food production and conserving and improving ecosystem functions and features, which is considered key to farm system resilience. It is essential that steps be taken to support farmers and households engaged in agriculture to cope with both the threat of climate variability as well as the challenges that climate change will pose on future livelihood opportunities. Climate change is not a singular event. Policy instruments should focus on facilitating a wider uptake of practices that improve those soil quality, water conservation as well as landscape and biodiversity parameters that will potentially enhance the climate change resilience of farming systems.
Member States are required to dedicate 25% of CAP direct payments to ecoschemes, and a minimum of 35% of European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) funding is ring-fenced for environmental, climate and animal welfare objectives. Countries should use the flexibilities provided under the current CAP to design interventions that incentivise farmers to take up those practices that have proven to increase resilience to the specific climate risks projected to affect their region. This type of targeted support is especially needed to help farmers with up-front investment needs to transition to new agricultural methods.
Identifying the most appropriate practices for different environmental and (current and future) climatic conditions warrants further research. A more comprehensive review covering different types of crops and practices, ideally drawing from national research efforts, could provide valuable insights into the benefits of different practices under different regional conditions. Such a review should also cover the economic implications of adopting sustainable practices, as the literature on the costs of transitioning to and applying new practices is still limited.
The evidence demonstrates that the positive effect of practices on parameters which enhance resilience and yields depends on a wide variety of factors and is context-specific. Such factors include environmental conditions, soil types, crop and tree species, the time of planting crops, as well as plant density, among others. Inappropriate agronomic management choices can be detrimental to crop yields or result in a failure to deliver environmental benefits. Farmers may lack knowledge regarding the suitability of crop combinations (in intercropping), crop-tree combinations (in agroforestry), density of crops and trees, the selection of practices under specific pedoclimatic conditions, the best time of the year to sow or harvest crops, etc. Hence, Member States need to support farmers to develop tailored plans for improving sustainability and resilience and invest in increasing their advisory capacity. Knowledge-sharing platforms and workshops may help to facilitate farmer-to-farmer dissemination of know-how on sustainable practices that is relevant to their circumstances.
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