Farm system characterization across Europe, and climate change impacts on farm system resilience

Summary

European dairy farm systems usually rely on their own forage production as the primary feed source, therefore changes in forage yields due to climate change could severely impact their production and economic performance. Using the FADN based database, dairy enterprise output was assessed within a range of defined climatic regions, and within multiple system types to account for variation in forages and reliance on external feeds. Incorporation of FAO GAEZ potential yield data for medium- and long-term time periods allowed an estimation of future forage yields, obtained using a regression equation developed from baseline data. The results show that whilst forage yields and therefore milk production would likely decline in southern European regions, more northern regions such as Boreal and North Atlantic and upland areas such as the Alps could see up to 12.5% yield increases per hectare. However, this raises questions as to the suitability of these landscapes to support higher stocking rates, so alternatively, less reliance on concentrates maybe a better option. In central and west Atlantic regions changes are expected to be less stark, but changing the current forage crops could result in greater productivity, due to better drought tolerance. Changing forage crop could be a successful mitigation decision in areas with a yield reduction, especially as relying on an increase in external feedstuffs to replace lower yielding forages may not be possible due to increasing competition for commodities to feed a growing human population.