Understanding and managing medium and longer-term challenges and opportunities for agriculture stemming from shifting climatic zones and changing agroecological environments

Expected Outcome

In line with the EU adaptation strategy, the common agricultural policy’s key objective of contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation, and the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030, the successful proposals are expected to contribute to better understanding and managing medium and longer-term challenges and opportunities for agriculture stemming from shifting climatic zones and changing agroecological environments.

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• the complex links between changes in climate conditions, ecosystems and their services, and agriculture productivity and sustainability are better understood and managed by relevant actors in the sector and in policy-making;
• the suitability of agriculture land areas for different agricultural uses is better understood, and regionally specific adaptation strategies are widely applied, taking into account different climate change scenarios;
• farmers and other owners and managers of agricultural land are more knowledgeable and better equipped to address the challenges and seize the opportunities resulting from shifting climatic zones and changing agroecological conditions.

Scope

While average global temperatures have risen by about 1.5° C globally since pre-industrial times, temperatures in Europe – the fastest warming continent – are rising at about twice that speed.[1] As temperatures rise, previously stable climatic zones (i.e., long-term patterns of temperature, precipitation and their seasonal variations) are shifting towards higher latitudes (towards the poles) and towards higher altitudes (where possible). Arid and semi-arid zones are expanding, while polar and sub-polar zones are shrinking. Precipitation patterns and regimes are also changing across different climatic zones. These changes affect natural as well as managed ecosystems and the services provided by them, altering the distribution and abundance of many plant species and their lifecycles, with consequences for cropping and other forms of agricultural land use, including animal husbandry. Studies show that agro-climatic zones have already moved in the EU over the past 40 years due to climate change, with the fastest shifts observed in Eastern Europe.[2] Recent studies also point towards additional risks resulting from changing ocean currents that might drastically affect weather patterns in parts of Europe in various ways.[3]

Proposals should address the following:

• by using current and novel evidence, observations and approaches, develop, test and validate dynamic models of the impacts of climate change – also in relation to possible tipping points – on agriculture, taking into account diverse agroecological systems and pedoclimatic conditions and covering the most important expected impacts (including changes in growing season and crop phenology, water demand and availability/quality, soil health and fertility, crop, grassland and livestock productivity, pests/diseases and parasites, etc.).
• characterise the geo-distribution of cropping systems – also including permanent crops as well as permanent grasslands and other land uses for livestock farming systems, and including currently grown crops as well as others that could be grown under future conditions – in Europe, propose indicators for sustainability, productivity and resilience, and assess production uncertainties, incorporating climate change projections.
• provide tools for decision-making and business strategies at different levels of action, for evidence-based agricultural land use and management strategies based on climate change trends and quantitative projections, enabling farmers and other practitioners to develop and apply tailored, innovative pathways towards adaptation and, where relevant, restoration in agricultural systems.

Proposals should include a dedicated task and resources for cooperation with the other project(s) funded under this topic and for collaborative actions with other related projects under Horizon Europe, including the Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change, and under the Agroecology Partnership.[4]

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) may participate as member of the consortium selected for funding. The role of JRC would be to explore how extremes such as drought and heatwaves will reshape land suitability to crop production under different scenarios exploiting advanced AI techniques. Furthermore, JRC would explore suitability under different tipping point scenarios, linked for instance to a possible collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).

This topic should involve the effective contribution of social sciences and humanities (SSH). The integration of existing Earth observation data space ecosystems and the usage of Destination Earth’s Climate Adaptation Digital Twin data is encouraged.

[1] European Environment Agency, European climate risk assessment: executive summary, EEA Report 01/2024

[2] European Environment Agency, Climate change adaptation in the agriculture sector in Europe, EEA Report 4/2019

[3] E.g., Rahmstorf, S. 2024. Is the Atlantic overturning circulation approaching a tipping point? Oceanography, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2024.501

[4] https://www.agroecologypartnership.eu/