AGROSCENARI, a national project on adaptation of Italian agriculture to climate change

Agroscenari is the short name for "Adaptation scenarios of Italian Agriculture to Climate Change", an interdisciplinary project (2009-2014), coordinated by the Italian Agricultural Research Council (CRA) and supported by the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies (MiPAAF). The project aims at developing adaptation strategies to climate change for Italian agriculture. To achieve this goal decision-making tools are being developed through the analysis of representative agricultural systems in relation to future climate scenarios, taking into account both biophysical and socio-economic factors.The project addresses climate change adaptation in six study areas: three in the north and three in the south of Italy, including some of the most relevant national production systems: viticulture, olive growing, rainfed cereals, intensive irrigated horticulture, intensive fruit growing, dairy cattle farming. The project consists of ten subprojects dealing with local near-future climate scenarios in the six study areas: agricultural mechanization, impacts of climate change on the main cropping systems, adaptation through substitution of crops and varieties, animal husbandry, irrigation, land and soil degradation, crop pathogens and parasites, phenology, economic strategies. A peculiar feature of Agroscenari is the design of a conducive science-policy interface at the regional and national scale, around concrete issues and through the involvement of local stakeholders, covering a wide range of situations of Italian agriculture.Most of the research work is based on two sets of climate scenarios for the near future, one deriving from the EU FP7 Ensembles project, statistically downscaled on the study areas for the period 2021-2050, and the other computed with a regional model on a shorter period: 2020-2030. Future projections show that temperatures will generally increase over all study areas in all periods, though with large heterogeneity, while seasonal precipitation will increase only in spring and autumn in the Po river valley (northern Italy), and decrease in all other cases.The main preliminary results include, among others, projected spatial distribution of olive tree cultivars in southern Italy, tests of new feed for milk cows and pigs from non irrigated crops, analysis of expected changes in irrigation demand for several crops and sites, evaluations of economic and financial effects of climate change on specific cropping systems, improved modelling tools, improved seasonal forecasting of irrigation demand, identification of threshold climatic changes for soil organic carbon content variations in different cropping systems, phenological scenarios and data bank.Some results from Agroscenari were mentioned in the "Rural development and climate change" White Book published online in 2012 by MiPAAF. A final conference is foreseen in October 2014, to present Agroscenari results and discuss adaptation of Italian agriculture to climate change