"Climate adaptation cannot be imposed from above"
Voices on climate
Jan Landert has been working for over ten years in the Department of Food System Sciences at FiBL in Switzerland, focusing on sustainability assessments. (Photo: FiBL, Andreas Basler)
Jan Landert has been working for over ten years in the Department of Food System Sciences at FiBL in Switzerland, focusing on sustainability assessments. As part of the Interreg project KlimaCrops, the environmental scientist investigated how arable farms in north-western Switzerland can adapt to climate change – and what this means for their economic viability and environmental impact.
What was the KlimaCrops project all about?
Extreme weather events such as heat waves and water shortages are known to be on the rise. This jeopardises crop yields and puts pressure on farm incomes. KlimaCrops addressed precisely these issues. Together with our project partners from the Ebenrain Centre in the canton of Baselland and the Office for Agriculture in the canton of Solothurn, we modelled various agricultural cropping systems – organic and PEP (ÖLN in German) – taking environmental impacts into account, so that agricultural income can be secured in the future (PEP = Proof of Ecological Performance; in Switzerland, this is a prerequisite for receiving state direct payments).
How did you go about this?
Together with advisors and farmers, we identified two model farms as a starting point: a PEP arable farm and an organic dairy farm. The farmers then proposed various adaptation measures – for example, drip irrigation instead of sprinklers, reduced tillage, drought-resistant grass seed mixtures, transfer mulch in potato cultivation, agroforestry, or the cultivation of adapted crops such as sunflowers instead of rapeseed or sorghum instead of maize. The measures did not come from us researchers, but from practical experience. We then used them to model the economic viability and environmental impacts.
How did you incorporate climate change into your calculations?
Using a model from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), we produced yield forecasts for the year 2050 in the Basel-Land and Solothurn region. These were then incorporated into the economic viability calculations. In doing so, we assumed today's economic conditions, including the level of direct payments. This is, of course, a rough assumption, but using different values would be highly speculative.
What have you found out about profitability?
Both model farms are projected to suffer contribution margin losses of just under ten per cent by 2050. This is due to falling yields in arable farming. The good news is that the adaptation measures can practically offset these losses – but in different ways. For the organic dairy farm, the more drought-resistant artificial grass mixtures were the key factor. The PEP farm was able to receive more direct payments thanks to conservation tillage. Alternative crops contributed to the deficit: they tended to generate lower revenues as they were either unable to fully compensate for the modelled yield losses or fetched slightly lower market prices.
And what about the negative environmental impacts?
Here, different trends emerge. We analysed five selected environmental indicators, including greenhouse gas emissions, using FarmLCA, our FiBL tool for life cycle assessments. At the organic dairy farm, the overall environmental impacts rose slightly – because the adapted artificial grassland provides more forage, allowing the dairy herd to be expanded and thus generating more greenhouse gas emissions. The situation is different on the PEP farm: reduced machinery use due to direct drilling, lower purchases of roughage through the cultivation of alfalfa, the use of drip irrigation and the cultivation of more extensive arable crops all reduce environmental impacts.
What does this mean in practice?
There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Climate adaptation is possible – but highly context-dependent. Different combinations of measures are required depending on the farm structure. Whilst the PEP farm in the model can implement new soil management measures and thus benefit from higher direct payments, this potential has already been exhausted on the organic farm.
Direct payments are crucial for economic viability. The discussion with the participating farmers was also particularly interesting: they pointed out that the cultivation of alternative crops requires additional support through advice and further training – and adapted financial conditions through direct payments. This is an important message for policymakers and advisory services.
What have you personally taken away from the project?
Just how much knowledge and pragmatism there is in agricultural practice. The farmers had very clear ideas about what is feasible on their farms and what is not. This down-to-earth approach is very valuable for research. And it has confirmed what we are also observing elsewhere: climate adaptation cannot be imposed from above – it must be developed jointly.
Interview: Bernadette Oehen, FiBL