Eva Merloni1*, Giulio Malorgio1, Luca Camanzi1, Luca Mulazzani1, Gabriele Antolini2, Giovanni Nigro3
1 Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Agro-Alimentari, Università di Bologna, Bologna
2 Agenzia Regionale Prevenzione Ambiente Energia – Servizio IdroMeteoClima, Bologna
3 Centro Ricerche Produzioni Vegetali, Faenza *[email protected]
Abstract
This study investigates the adaptive capacity of agri-food firms facing climate change, with particular focus to the Emilia- Romagna wine-growers that produce Sangiovese. More precisely, the main objectives of the study are to assess the main factors influencing producers when dealing with the new environmental challenges and to evaluate the effectiveness of their adaptation strategies.
To do that, a holistic and innovative approach is developed so as that it can be implemented in different contexts and sites. In fact, a number of different factors are considered, including climate variability, farm structure, farmer perception and environmental attitude.
Hence, a set of research hypotheses are formulated and verified through empirical analysis, gathering various types of data from two main sources: a 15-year time series of climate data (temperature and rain) and information collected through a questionnaire administered to 56 wine growers who produce Sangiovesein Emilia-Romagna.
Data collected have been classified and elaborated by means of multivariate statistical technique (cluster analysis) and the Bayesan Network has been applied in order to better understand the relation between the variables that influence capacity of farms to bear the economic management of climate change.
The results show that, in the short-run, farmers perceive the ongoing change in climate conditions and that they react by adjusting agronomic practices and balancing technical and economic issues. However, the probability to be negatively impacted by the effects of climate change is largely affected by structural and technical farm characteristics and by farmer readiness to embrace change. The local climatic conditions are also relevant factors for the adaptation issue. To overcome the new climatic challenges the adoption of focused management and adaptation strategies (irrigation system, mechanized harvesting, investment) are found to be crucial, as well as appropriate policies in terms of regulation, incentives and support.
Keywords: climate change, adaptation strategies, adaptation practices, wine business, Bayesian Network. Parole chiave: cambiamento climatico, strategie di adattamento, pratiche di adattamento, modello Bayesiano Introduction
The tight connection between climate change and wine production is today widely recognized (Stock et al., 2005). In fact, wine grape yield and quality are largely dependent on climatic conditions, particularly during the growing season (Jones and Davis 2000; van Leeuwen et al. 2004; Urhausen et al. 2011) and weather fluctuations are likely to occur along the thirty years of a vineyard life cycle. Further, in the last decades, global warming and extreme atmospheric events intensified significantly. The main effects of climate change on wine production entail increasing plant diseases, variations in alcoholic and sugar content, leaching out and soil erosion (Anderson et al., 2008; Ashenfelter and Storchmann, 2014; Sadras, et al., 2012), that in turn have huge repercussions on prices, rents and profits. In cases of extreme extent the typical wine-growing regions (between 20 and 53° latitude in the northern hemisphere and 20 and 42° in the southern hemisphere) may also become unsuitable terroir. This is why, an increasing number of contributes in the scientific literature focus on the most appropriate adaptation practices and strategies, such as night-time harvesting, berry spoilage (quicker delivery of the berries to the winery), Integrated Pest Mangement, the use of more alcohol-tolerant yeast strains, etc. (Keller, 2010; Butt and Copping, 2000; Vink et al., 2009; Schultz, 2000).
Given these premises, this study investigates the adaptive capacity of agri-food firms facing climate change, with particular focus to the Emilia-Romagna wine-growers that produce Sangiovese. More precisely, the main objectives of the study are to assess the main factors influencing producers when dealing with the new environmental challenges and to evaluate the effectiveness of their adaptation strategies.
Furthermore, the research aimed at developing a method for assessing adaptation capacity sufficiently specific to capture local variation but which can also be transferred to other sites and crops later.
Materials and Methods
In light of the background research and the literature review conducted, to achieve the general and specific objectives, the logical framework has been build on an holistic approach that allows to combine different information from different sources. The research has been set up into three main economic theories:
- the Natural Resource-Based View (NRBV) theoretical approach (Hart, 1995) that traces the link between environmental actions and profit and it establishes a direct connection between the firms capabilities to gain competitive advantages while coping with the challenge of irreversible environmental change
- the behavioural economics (Artikov et al., 2006; Hu, 2006) and life cycle thinking theory (Falcone et al., 2015). can be well used to explain the intentions for adopting specific adaptation practices and strategies and climate-friendly behavior in the context of climate change
- the geographical proximity theory (Marshall, 1980; Porter, 2000), according to which farms that interact within a territory at a meso-economic level, allowing cost reduction, knowledge exchange and the level of innovation of individual businesses.
The analysis of those economic theories applied to the context of climate change, allows to identify the main factors that can influence the adaptation capacity, including climate variability, farm structure, farmer perception and environmental attitude.
Hence, a set of research hypotheses are formulated and verified through empirical analysis, gathering various types of data from two main sources: a 15-year time series of climate data (temperature and rain) (secondary data) and information collected through a questionnaire (primary data) administered to 56 wine growers who produce Sangiovese in Emilia- Romagna region. Data collected from 56 wine firms and from climatic data at vineyard level have been classified and elaborated by means of multivariate statistical technique (cluster analysis) to categorize respondents and variables into groups based on the factor that influence the adaptation capacity to bear the economic management of climate change. Then the Bayesian network (BN) has been applied. Bayesian network is a probabilistic graphical model, in order to facilitate learning about causal relationships between variables, combining quantitative and qualitative data and integrating social, ecological and economic factors to assess the process of adaptive management.
Results and Discussion
The climatic data elaboration at vineyard level shows that the vineyards that have undergone greater temperature variation, associated with the Winkler index, are the vineyards located predominantly in the south of Romagna, in the province of Rimini, and in the pre-hilly area of the province of Cesena. while the greatest variability in water surplus is recorded mainly in the provinces between Forlì and Imola, in the hilly areas (Pictures 1 and 2).
Fig. 1: Winkler index variability values at vineyard level.
Fig.1: Water surplus variability values at vineyard level.
Fig.1: Valori di variabilità del surplus idrico calcolati a livello di vigna.
Data collected from 56 wine firms and from climatic data at vineyard level have been classified and elaborated by means of multivariate statistical technique (cluster analysis) to categorize respondents and variables into groups based on the factor that influence the adaptation capacity to bear the economic management of climate change. The results show that, in the short-run, farmers perceive the ongoing change in climate conditions and that they react by adjusting agronomic practices and balancing technical and economic issues. However, the probability to be negatively impacted by the effects of climate change is largely affected by structural and technical farm characteristics and by farmer readiness to embrace change. The local climatic conditions are also relevant factors for the adaptation issue. To overcome the new climatic challenges the adoption of focused management and adaptation strategies (irrigation system, mechanized harvesting, investment) are found to be crucial, as well as appropriate policies in terms of regulation, incentives and support.
Conclusions
The management and adaptation strategies can largely reduce the potential impacts of climate change and climate variability on wine production and farmer income. However, the adaptation capacity of wine-making enterprises is related to producer behavior (adaptation practices and strategies and readiness to change) and it is largely dependent on structural and technical farm characteristics, producer perception of climate change and climate variability. In particular, the climate variability influences more the long term vision of the producers than the day-by-day adaptation. For this reason it will be necessary improve the accuracy in predictions of climate phenomena at the micro level.
In any case, the producers are aware of the efforts which are required to cope climate change in the future, in fact they perceive the necessity to implement adaptation strategies such as new rootstock, new varieties, specific investments, in particular for the irrigation system and mechanized harvesting. Thus, in order to support the wine farms and to safeguard the wine production in the future, it is necessary to improve the level of knowledge, information and research about the innovative management systems and adaptation options. Furthermore, the introduction of tools and form of assistance for the adoption of adaptation and mitigation measures in the local supporting policies is crucial.
Finally, the survey shows how the producers interviewed declare to rely on, for the choice of practices and strategies to be implemented, mainly on personal knowledge and / or on confrontation with colleagues. This aspect confirms the theory of proximity or geographical proximity, according to which geographic enterprises, such as regional clusters that are in
specific climatic conditions and soil composition, worker sharing, in terms of human capital, and specialized suppliers, developing common strategies for the sector.
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