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Climate change impacts on European agriculture revisited: adding the economic dimension of grasslands

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Abstract

Forage and more widely grassland systems are difficult to analyze in economic terms because a large proportion of what is produced is not marketed. Economic misestimation of these farm products may dramatically alter projected climate change impacts. This study estimates the economic value of grass and assesses the impact of climatic variations on grassland–livestock systems by taking various environmental and climatic factors into account. Accordingly, grass yield responses to nitrogen inputs (N-yield functions) have been simulated using the grassland biogeochemical PaSim model and then fed into the economic farm-type supply AROPAj model. We developed a computational method to estimate shadow prices of grass production, allowing us to better estimate the effects of climatic variability on grassland and crop systems. This approach has been used on a European scale under two Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change climate scenarios (AR4 A2 and B1). Results show a significant change in land use over time. Accordingly, due to decreases in feed expenses, farmers may increase livestock, thereby increasing overall greenhouse gas emissions for all scenarios considered. As part of autonomous adaptation by farming systems, N-yield functions extending to pastures and fodders allow us to improve the model and to refine results when marketed and non-marketed crops are considered in a balanced way.

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Acknowledgments

This paper stems from research carried out in the context of the AnimalChange project, which received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) Under Grant Agreement No. 266018. The research leading to these results was also conducted as part of the FoodSecure project, which received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-SSH/2012–2017) Under Grant Agreement No. 290693. The first author was supported by the French Agency of the Environment and the Control of Energy. The authors would also like to thank Pierre Humblot for his helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UMR0210, Economie Publique, AgroParisTech, INRA, Université Paris-Saclay, 78850, Thiverval-Grignon, France

    Parisa Aghajanzadeh-Darzi & Pierre-Alain Jayet

  2. UREP, INRA, 63000, Clermont-Ferrand, France

    Raphaël Martin & Sylvain Laperche

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  1. Parisa Aghajanzadeh-Darzi
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  2. Raphaël Martin
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  3. Sylvain Laperche
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  4. Pierre-Alain Jayet
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Correspondence to Pierre-Alain Jayet.

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Editor: Wolfgang Cramer.

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Aghajanzadeh-Darzi, P., Martin, R., Laperche, S. et al. Climate change impacts on European agriculture revisited: adding the economic dimension of grasslands. Reg Environ Change 17, 261–272 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-016-1018-z

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