Search

International audience; Understanding the effects of different combinations of sowing dates and cultivars on maize yield is essential to develop appropriate climate change adaptation strategies. Thus, modelling ability in reproducing the observed response of maize yield to sowing dates and cultivars needs to be assessed. In particular, whether crop conditions around flowering can entirely explain the variability of potential yields across sowing dates and cultivars in climatic conditions such as the Mediterranean ones (where high temperatures may occur during the grain filling period) needs to be explored. Otherwise, also assimilation during grain filling and its duration should be taken into account.

The JRC PESETA IV study shows that ecosystems, people and economies in the EU will face major impacts from climate change if we do not urgently mitigate greenhouse gas emissions or adapt to climate change. The burden of climate change shows a clear north-south divide, with southern regions in Europe much more impacted, through the effects of extreme heat, water scarcity, drought, forest fires and agriculture losses. Limiting global warming to well below 2°C would considerably reduce climate change impacts in Europe. Adaptation to climate change would further minimize unavoidable impacts in a cost-effective manner, with considerable co-benefits from nature-based solutions., JRC.C.6-Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transport

The 2013 EU strategy on adaptation to climate change aims at contributing to a more climate-resilient Europe. However, there are still large gaps in understanding and characterising climate impacts in Europe and how impacts in the rest of the world could affect Europe. This report provides quantitative modelling-based results from biophysical and agro-economic models as part of the PESETA-IV (Projection of Economic impacts of climate change in Sectors of the European Union based on bottom-up Analysis) project. We analyse climate change projections for 2050 considering the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) of 8.5 W/m2 (with corresponding global warming levels ranging between 1.6 oC and 2.7 oC compared to pre-industrial levels), as well as for 1.5 °C and 2 °C warming conditions. Results show that climate change will pose a threat to global food production in the medium to long term, and that Europe will also be affected. Forced by the projected changes in daily temperature, precipitation, wind, relative humidity, and global radiation, grain maize yields in the EU will decline between 1% and 22%. In addition, wheat yields in Southern Europe are expected to decrease by up to 49%. However, in Northern Europe some of the negative productivity effects caused by climate change may be partially offset by higher levels of atmospheric CO2 concentrations and changing precipitation regimes. Losses, especially in Southern Europe may be reduced by tailored adaptation strategies; e.g. changing varieties and crop types, increasing and improving irrigation practices for certain crops and when economically feasible. However, limitations on sustainable water abstraction levels could become a barrier to increase irrigation levels, specifically in the Mediterranean countries (particularly Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Italy and Turkey) where duration of water scarcity under global warming are projected to intensify. As large negative climate change impacts on productivity outside of the EU are estimated, large market spill-over effects will push up production in both Northern and Southern Europe through higher demand for some agricultural commodities outside of EU, resulting in higher producer prices. This, in turn, may benefit farmers' income and have positive effects on the EU’s agricultural commodity exports. However, other limiting factors (not all fully integrated into the used modelling system yet), such as increasing water shortage in Southern Europe (Task 10) and constraints on the expansion of irrigation, increasing impacts of heatwaves and droughts, consequences of reduction of nutrient use due to environmental and climate mitigation constraints, need to be further evaluated., JRC.D.4-Economics of Agriculture

The study assesses how climate change could affect Europe in eleven impact areas. Under a high warming scenario, several climate impacts show a clear geographical north-south divide. Most of the welfare losses, assessed for six impact areas, would be greatly reduced under a 2ᵒC scenario., JRC.C.6-Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transport

In this report we describe the advancements on the Bioma Framework developed during year 2017. Given that the Bioma platform is quite mature, its core was not recently changed. So that the majority of changes concerns the implementation of the models developed in the platform. Moreover, during 2017 we also set up an alternative version of the framework itself, based on a new developing framework called .NET Core, with the purpose of being able to create a version of Bioma runnable on Linux. Therefore this document is organized in two chapters: the advancements on the models and the creation of the new version of the platform. Bioma is a framework for develop and run agronomical models. The Bioma framework is used in the context of unit D5 since many years and, starting from year 2015, it is used also in the operational chain for the Agri4Cast bulletin. The changes described in chapter 1 apply also to the operational use of Bioma, whereas the content of chapter 2 does not have, for now, an impact on the activities of the unit. The documentation of Bioma and of the other software cited in this document are in the Reference chapter., JRC.D.5-Food Security

Compilation of MARS bulletins for Ukraine, season 2016-2017, JRC.D.5-Food Security

Little relief for summer crops, JRC.H.4-Monitoring Agricultural Resources

The objective of the JRC PESETA II project is to gain insights into the sectoral and regional patterns of climate change impacts in Europe by the end of this century. The study uses a large set of climate model runs and impact categories (ten impacts: agriculture, energy, river floods, droughts, forest fires, transport infrastructure, coasts, tourism, habitat suitability of forest tree species and human health). The project integrates biophysical direct climate impacts into a macroeconomic economic model, which enables the comparison of the different impacts based on common metrics (household welfare and economic activity). Under the reference simulation the annual total damages would be around €190 billion/year, almost 2% of EU GDP. The geographical distribution of the climate damages is very asymmetric with a clear bias towards the southern European regions. More than half of the overall annual EU damages are estimated to be due to the additional premature mortality (€120 billion). Moving to a 2°C world would reduce annual climate damages by €60 billion, to €120 billion (1.2% of GDP).

The objective of the JRC PESETA II project is to gain insights into the sectoral and regional patterns of climate change impacts in Europe by the end of this century. The study uses a large set of climate model runs and impact categories (ten categories: agriculture, energy, river floods, droughts, forest fires, transport infrastructure, coasts, tourism, habitat suitability of forest tree species and human health). The project integrates biophysical direct climate impacts (from eight of the impact categories) into a macroeconomic economic model, which enables the comparison of the different impacts based on common metrics (household welfare and economic activity). If the 2080s climate would happen today and without public adaptation, the EU household welfare losses would amount to around €190 billion, almost 2% of EU GDP. The geographical distribution of the climate damages is very asymmetric with a clear bias towards the southern European regions. More than half of the overall EU damages are estimated to be due to additional premature mortality (€120 billion). Moving to a 2°C world would reduce climate damages by €60 billion, to €120 billion (1.2% of GDP)., JRC.J.1-Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transport

We use the Bio-physical Model Applications framework (BioMA) to simulate the maize yield response to water availability in current and future climatic conditions. Two different realizations of the A1B scenario from dynamically downscaled global circulation models within the ENSEMBLES project, which capture the most contrasting situations with respect to changes in precipitation and temperature, have been selected for this purpose. The CropSyst crop model has been used to simulate the water-limited and potential maize yield as well as total crop water requirement and total water consumption. The water deficit productivity index has been introduced for the purpose of the study, describing the gain in crop yield when water deficit is reduced. The results have shown that the maize yield is expected to decrease over Southern Europe as well as regions around the Black Sea during the 2030s. The water could become more productive in central and Western Europe and slightly less productive in the Southern Europe., JRC.H.4-Monitoring Agricultural Resources

CAPRESE has led to a better understanding of the potential of using specific land management practices in preserving and increasing the stock of organic carbon in the agricultural soils of the EU. The scientific literature relating to a range of carbon sequestration measures has been synthesised and evaluated for their potential applicability. Land management has a significant impact on SOC stocks with a number of measures clearly leading to carbon emissions. Conversely, a number of practices can be used to preserve and increase SOC levels. A novel modelling platform suggests that existing assessments of the SOC stock associated with agricultural topsoil in the EU may be over-estimating the current pool by around 24%. The project shows a topsoil SOC pool of 16 Gt., 7.4 and 5.4 Gt respectively between arable and pasture. The model shows that grassland conversion to cropland can have a strong negative impact on the overall C balance in the EU and consequently should be preserved (together with peatlands). Promising management practices for sequestering SOC include cover crops, complex rotation including residue management and reduced tillage. Such measures give C sequestration rates of up to 0.5 t C ha-1 yr-1. However, their effect was strongly dependent on the spatial and temporal extent considered and the scenarios clearly show strong regional differences in the performance of measures. An integrated approach in which measures are combined, could have a significant impact. An implementation scenario of a 12% uptake of mitigation measures gave a cumulated sequestration value of 101 Mt by 2020. Increased areas and variation in implementation patterns could give rise to higher values. Extensive and comparable data on the financial aspects of the implementation and cost-benefit of measures are limited or absent. Substantial effort is required to address these issues. Simplistic scenario analysis shows that on the basis of a conservative implementation of mitigation measures, a SOC stock with a perceived trading value of €500 million could be established by 2020. Such values imply that the implementation of the practices considered would be cost efficient compared to non-agricultural mitigation measures While calculations at farm-scale are difficult, agricultural systems and proportion of land that could be made available to SOC management schemes, there is a perceived positive cost-benefit to C preservation and mitigation measures. Return for grasslands where sequestration and preservation rates are higher would clearly be greater. A cost benefit calculated with the CAPRI (FT) model. Indicated no loss in agricultural income from a 5% conversion to grassland with in turn resulted in a value of the CO2 sequestered in the soil as €20.98 t-1 CO2. Comprehensive data on the impact of the implementation of the measures on production and the market are difficult to define as these macro-scale models do not consider the technical details associated with the specific measures that need to be applied to sequester SOC. However, the studies tend to indicate that that impacts on production could occur but these would be of low magnitude and regionally variable. From an economic perspective, the financial implications of the grassland scenario implemented in CAPRI (FT) model, it can be stated that the CAP premium implications are negligible. This is derived from the fact that as most of the direct payments premiums are now decoupled from production the change in the land use derived from the scenario setting is not affecting the total amount of the direct payments. From a policy perspective, it is important that existing good stewardship of land for maintaining existing SOC stocks should be recognised as a premium in comparison to simply sequestration of OC. Such an approach would be an incentive not to engage in conversion of organic-rich soils to other uses which could lead to a decrease in SOC stocks., JRC.H.5-Land Resources Management

This study analyses the change of inter-annual variability of agro-climatic indices calculated for the major environmental zones in Europe from a baseline climate in 2000 to a projected climate in 2030. It leverages on a future daily weather dataset based on 2 constrasting realizations of scenario A1B by global circulation models (GCMs) dynamically downscaled with regional climate models (RCM) that have been bias-corrected. A special emphasis is given to the tails of the agro-climatic indices distributions, to how they relate to observed values in the present climate and to how they evolve in the near future., JRC.H.4-Monitoring Agricultural Resources

The Workshop on crop yield forecasting in South East Europe (workshop CYFSEE) was organised in the frame of Enlargement & Integration Action of JRC. The workshop took place in Skopje from 30-31 May 2013. The objective of the workshop was to foster cooperation in the field of crop monitoring and yield forecasting. JRC is running the MARS Crop Yield Forecasting System (MCYFS) that will be extended to Acceding and Candidate Countries as well as to the European Neighbourhood Region. The workshop was attended by 35 participants from 13 countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, FYR of Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey and Ukraine). Moreover, three representatives from JRC participated to the workshop. During the first working day JRC representatives presented existing tools in use for operational crop yield forecasting and research activities within the MARS unit: Crop Growth Modelling System CGMS, the Bio-physical Model Applications platform BioMA and MARS Viewer. The main aim of the second working day was to assess state with crop monitoring and yield forecasting in SEE. Moreover, presenters from new member states (Romania and Bulgaria) as well as from other member states from the region (Hungary, Slovenia and Poland) were invited to present on going activities in their countries. Participants presented 24 presentations covering various topics related to crop yield forecasting. Some of the presenters presented meteorological, phenological or soil data availability in their countries or presented use of these data in their scientific and operational work (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, FYR of Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Turkey). Other participants presented operational use of crop models and other tools in crop monitoring and crop yield forecasting (Turkey, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, Poland, BiH). Various tools are in use like CropSyst, AgroMetShell, Wofost, and some in house developed tools. Some of the presenters addressed crop statistic in their countries (Turkey, BiH). The remote sensing data are in operational use in some of the new member countries (Bulgaria, Romania) but not in SEE countries approaching EU except Ukraine and Turkey. Finally, several experts presented high quality in house developed tools (models, systems) for crop monitoring and crop yield-forecasting (Turkey, Serbia, Ukraine). Most of the presenters include interesting results of their previous and current research activities. Future activities should be targeted in fostering cooperation in crop yield forecasting in the region. One of the most appreciated activities will be to organize one training session on using BioMA in 2014. Proposal for organizing such training in Kiev (Ukraine) next year within the conference "Earth observation for sustainable development” should be seriously considered as one of the future activities that will meet needs of SEE experts and institutions in further development of crop monitoring and forecasting. Collaboration in mutual projects was one of the most frequently expressed idea for further cooperation initiated during this workshop as well as stated in the evaluation forms. The list of participants with their contact details is part of this report and also stored within MARS files and will serve as list of contact points for future. Participants positively evaluated the workshop, and found it as relevant for their future work. This report contains complete information on the workshop, as well as agenda, list of the participants, results from the evaluation forms and links to all presentations., JRC.H.4-Monitoring Agricultural Resources

Drought indicators identify the envelope or boundaries of drought zones, so that the course of the drought zone may be charted over time. However, drought lacks a precise and universally accepted definition, so that multiple drought indicators are necessary to more reliably document when drought occurs:drought is a ¿creeping¿ phenomenon, so that identification of the earlier stages of drought is extremely difficult (Castillo 2009; Moreira et al 2008). Hence, multiple indicators and indices have been developed in order to detect drought, the impact of drought on the various water budget components (evapotranspiration, precipitation, soil water and runoff), iimpact of drought upon uses of water, and remote sensing-based vegetation health indicators, designed to monitor vegetation water stress over very large tracts of land, such as the Russian Federation. In short, drought monitoring at regional and global scales calls for integrating the information of multiple disciplines, as well as semantic registration and linking of datasets to the detailed components of the water cycle. At the same time, global drought monitoring involves drought monitoring terminology among multiple languages in Europe, Africa, South America, and East Asia. The EuroGEOSS discovery broker is a contribution to the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). The Discovery Augmentation Component enables semanticsaware discovery by matching the search patterns entered by the end user against a collection of multilingual, thesauri: these are controlled vocabularies providing multiple textual representations for terms and organizing them according to specificity and relatedness. As a consequence, the user¿s query is first related to a set of language-neutral identifiers (e.g., URIs) that represent entities in a concept graph that the user may navigate for identifying related terms that are relevant to a relief agency or drought manager¿s search. These data structures are hosted by the GENESIS Vocabulary Service. These thesauri are provided in the Simple Knowledge Organizing System (SKOS) format, a lightweight ontology for expressing knowledge organization systems, harmonized in the context of GEO and EuroGEOSS project areas, by relating terms from distinct thesauri, thus allowing the user to move from one categorization to the other. The user identifies a set of terms (concept listings for drought areas), combined with drawing a box on a map, at which point the broker translates the corresponding URIs back to a customizable set of languages and executes multiple queries against the catalogs it is federating. The General Multilingual Environmental Thesaurus (GEMET) and the INSPIRE Feature Concept Dictionary and Glossary these reference thesauri proved to be too general as to express the specificities of drought-related datasets and services, as well as details of the water cycle, that are necessary to identify whether drought has occurred, along with the severity of drought and the magnitude of its impacts. As a result, a new thematic thesaurus was established for water that could more easily be used for annotation and discovery and to bring the water thesaurus more in alignment with the drought activities, including metadata drought creation and the indicators and datasets used in common with the European Drought Observatory. The water thesaurus chosen was derived from the USA Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc (CUAHSI) water ontology, version 1. An expanded version of the CUAHSI water ontology is being translated into SKOS data structures and linked to relevant terms in the reference thesauri. The resulting system will provide concept searches, which will improve on simple keyword searches, and provide greater versatility for more diverse semi-arid drought locations, such as Africa, complimenting coverage in the more moisture-rich European areas., JRC.DDG.H.7-Land management and natural hazards

HIGHLIGHT Lower than average active temperatures in western and central Europe, surplus in northern and eastern Europe (Sweden, Finland, Baltic countries and Russia). Rainfall excess in northeastern and eastern Germany and Poland as well as abundant precipitation in central Europe could have hampered harvesting activities. The forecast for the next ten days predicts colder and wetter than usual conditions in northern, western and central Europe., JRC.H.4-Monitoring agricultural resources

Droughts can have a substantial impact on the agriculture sector limiting the productivity of crops and leading to reduced yields. Recent droughts caused important economic losses in several areas of the world. In order to detect, monitor and forecast droughts at the continental scale the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) is developing the prototype of the European Drought Observatory (EDO). A multidisciplinary set of indicators is used within EDO to constantly monitor the various environmental components potentially affected by this hazard (soil, vegetation, etc.) to obtain a comprehensive and updated picture of the situation. In this paper, two indicators produced within EDO are compared with statistics about crop yields to evaluate the effects of drought events on the agricultural production. The test area is Spain, which has recently suffered from prolonged drought events. Results show that crop yields are significantly reduced in coincidence with drought events detected by the indicators., JRC.H.4-Monitoring Agricultural Resources

In this paper drought indices from different disciplines and derived from different data sources are reviewed. For each category of meteorological, hydrological, agricultural, comprehensive, remote sensing-based, and combined drought indices the current state of development is described. While in the field of remote sensing-derived drought indices every year a large number of new indices is proposed, in function of new datasets that become available, the development of new drought indices based on meteorological and hydrological data is more focused on practical applications. The combination of drought indices from different domains seems to be the most promising, but also the most demanding way forward to draw a comprehensive picture of a drought situation., JRC.H.7-Climate Risk Management

The last couple of decades have experienced a significant increase of impacts of extreme weather events in the EU. There are several causes for this trend. From one side, the increased frequency of extreme events is due to on-going climate transformations. From the other side, uncontrolled developments have originated an increased exposure of assets. The EC has recognised the importance of the natural hazards subject for the protection of the environment and the citizens and for the harmonised growth of the European territory. The JRC is active in the field of risk and vulnerability analysis for weather-driven hazards. The work aims to contribute to the understanding of territorial features linked to extreme events (focus on floods, forest fires, droughts and heat-waves) and to propose solutions and policy-options for sustainable regional development in Europe. The analysis of impacts from weather driven extreme events is centred on the concept of ‘risk’, which is defined as the resulting combination of hazard, exposure and vulnerability. The development of methods for the evaluation of adaptation strategies is based on an integrated modelling concept., JRC.H.7-Land management and natural hazards

Europe experienced a warm period with mean temperatures higher than the long term average. In the basin of Mediterranean Sea and on the Balkan Peninsula daily temperatures exceeded 30°C during several days like in summertime. Abundant precipitation was recorded in North and East-Europe. Southern part of Europe remained dry. In the next few days mild temperatures continue to persist for most of Europe. Abundant precipitation is forecast in Germany and Alpine region; very dry conditions in Iberian Peninsula, southern France, northern Italy, Romania and Bulgaria., JRC.H.4-Monitoring agricultural resources

HIGHLIGHT Mild thermal conditions occurred in the major area of western and northern Europe. Colder than average weather conditions characterized in most of the Balkan Peninsula and Turkey. November proved to be one of the driest in several countries. The long lasting water deficiency affects adversely the winter crops from East-Germany to Ukraine. Weather forecast: Warmer than usual in majority of Europe except British Isles. High amounts of precipitation in France and Germany, scarce amounts for Poland and Spain., JRC.H.4-Monitoring Agricultural Resources

Highlights Rice production at EU-27 level is forecast to be close to last year’s values (+0.7%) and is characterized by average yield potential all over Europe. In fact with the exception of very good expectation in France (+10.4%) and Spain (+3.2) yields were around the 5-year average. The decrease in surface at EU-27 level is attributed to the reduction in the cultivated areas in Italy (-0.5% with respect to 2010), Spain (-0.3%) and especially in France (-10.8%) where the lack of rainfall might have further reduced the rice fields., JRC.H.4-Monitoring agricultural resources

SUMMER RAINFALL INCREASED BIOMASS PRODUCTION IN THE NORTHERN HALF OF EUROPE, DRY PERIOD IN MEDITERRANEAN BASIN HIGHLIGHT Expectations slightly above seasonal average values in most of Europe. Vulnerable areas after dry period in spring have recovered biomass production. Rainfall accumulation during July and August benefited pasture production levels at the end of the summer throughout Europe with the exception of the Mediterranean region. This allowed recovering biomass production levels in France, Benelux and Germany, which have been in a vulnerable situation after the dry period experienced during spring. Good expectations are depicted for Romania, Czech Republic and Slovakia where rainfall was accompanied by air temperatures slightly above the seasonal average., JRC.H.4-Monitoring agricultural resources

HIGHLIGHT The mean temperatures were higher than the long term average in the western and northern regions of Europe. On the contrary the Balkan Peninsula and Turkey experienced a colder autumn. Scarce precipitation was recorded in several places in Central and Eastern Europe. Forecast air temperatures above the long-term average in western and northern Europe, lower than average temperatures in central Europe and areas around Black Sea. Abundant precipitation in Portugal; scarce rainfall in central and south-eastern Europe., JRC.H.4-Monitoring Agricultural Resources

HIGHLIGHT Frequent and abundant precipitation in August hampered cereals harvesting in western Europe and around Baltic Sea. Long hot spell with very scarce rainfall was recorded in Mediterranean areas and north-westward from Adriatic; colder than usual in United Kingdom and Ireland. Mild weather is forecast and rainfall mainly at northern altitudes, JRC.H.4-Monitoring agricultural resources

A cold December in western Europe; milder weather with wide fluctuations in eastern Europe, the Black Sea basin and Russia. Crop conditions across Europe are considered satisfactory and no major concerns are reported. Western Europe experienced a cold December with early winter crop dormancy and partially lower biomass accumulation before the winter. It was milder than usual in eastern Europe, the Black Sea basin and Russia, but wide fluctuations and a sharp frost did occur, adversely affecting crops in Russia and Ukraine. For the EU-27 there are no particular frost kill concerns; snow covered the crops during cold temperatures in December and the cold spells in January. Crops are vulnerable to late frosts due to rather mild temperatures in February., JRC.DDG.H.4-Monitoring agricultural resources

Despite rainfall in Western Europe yields are revised down At the beginning of June the dry period in western Europe ended. Countries most affected by the dry spell received some beneficial rainfall and more rain is forecast in the coming 10 days bringing the precipitation since 1st June to average or even surplus values in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and northern Italy. This rainfall will not entirely compensate, especially in France, for the long lasting dry spell depleting soil reservoirs. Ukraine appears as a new area of concern with lacking precipitation while crops have a high water demand. Compared to our last forecasts from 17th May yield expectations for all cereals except spring barley decreased at EU 27 level due to the unfavourable weather conditions mainly in United Kingdom, France and Germany affecting yield prospects in these countries. Spain is experiencing a very promising year and yields have been revised up., JRC.DDG.H.4-Monitoring agricultural resources

Promising crop season for grain maize confirmed at EU27 level Total cereals production is estimated at 280,10 Mt at EU27 level which is -3.0 % less than the 5 years’ average. In comparison with last year, the production for EU27 of winter cereals will be lower by -1.7 % for soft wheat, -9.9 % for winter barley and -12.6 % for durum wheat. The production of grain maize and spring barley is forecast at higher levels (+8.0 % and +5.2 % respectively in comparison with last year). Yields for all crops are forecast higher than both those of 2010 and the 5 years’ average, except soft wheat (-0.1 % vs 2010), winter barley (-2.4 %) and rapeseed (-2.8%). Yield forecast for grain maize is higher than the 5 years’ average in all EU27 producers. Among the main producers, the production forecast is higher in comparison to 2010 (from +4.0 % in IT to +16.6 % in ES). In RO the production is also forecast at a higher level than in 2010 (+7.8 %) but this reflects rather the increase in the acreage (+16.1 %) than the yield performance (-7.1 %)., JRC.H.4-Monitoring Agricultural Resources

According to the October issue of the JRC MARS Bulletin - Crop monitoring in Europe, warm and dry summer weather followed by a period of abundant, but sometimes excessive rainfall since the end of September, hampered field work in large parts of Europe. These wet conditions at the end of September and October caused delays to the harvesting of summer crops as well as to sowing activities in western and southwestern France, the Benelux, southern Poland, eastern Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. For winter rapeseed, the sowing window has come to an end. For winter cereals, timely completion of the sowing campaign is still possible in the coming weeks. At EU level, the yield forecasts for all summer crops were revised downwards, mostly based on a reanalysis of data since the start of the season, JRC.D.5-Food Security

Yield forecasts for EU summer crops revised further downwards According to the crop monitoring Bulletin for Europe, at EU level, the yield forecasts for all summer crops were revised downwards, most markedly for Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. Overall, the EU-level yield forecast for summer crops is now close to the 5-year average. Severe drought conditions continued in eastern Romania, eastern Bulgaria, and southern Ukraine, with further negative impacts mainly on maize and sunflowers. Drought is now also observed in north-eastern Greece, the country’s main sunflower production region, and a prolonged precipitation deficit has started to impact maize in central Ukraine. In western Europe, the heatwaves reported in August were followed by a drop in temperatures, but a precipitation deficit continued in large parts of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, western Germany and the southern Netherlands, further diminishing the yield expectations for summer crops in these regions (mainly maize, sugar beet and potatoes). In Ireland and parts of the United Kingdom, frequent and abundant precipitation since mid-August negatively affected the ripening and harvesting of spring and winter cereals. Favourable conditions prevailed in central and northern Europe. A surplus of precipitation benefited summer crops in northern Italy, Austria, Slovakia, Czechia, Poland and Belarus., JRC.D.5-Food Security

According to the October issue of the JRC MARS Bulletin - Crop monitoring in Europe, farmers in many parts of Europe had trouble harvesting summer crops and sowing the winter crops for next year’s season, either because it was too dry or because it was too wet. Rapeseed sowing activities were particularly affected. Frequent and abundant rainfall hampered the harvesting of summer crops in the British Isles, part of the Benelux countries, northern Germany, Denmark and southern Sweden. In these regions, sugar beet, potatoes and green maize crops are the most affected. The winter sowing campaign also faced delays in these regions. Dry conditions hampered the sowing of winter crops in northern France, Germany, north-eastern Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Spain as well as in western Ukraine. In most of these regions, rain arrived too late to complete the sowing of rapeseed within the optimal window, which is likely to result in a reduced rapeseed area. The sowing window for winter cereals is still open, but more rain will be needed in most of these regions to sustain adequate stand formation. Once again, the yield forecasts for summer crops were revised slightly downward., JRC.D.5-Food Security

The yield forecast for winter wheat is similar to the previous year, but spring wheat – and particularly spring barley – are delivering better; yield expectations are exceeding the 5-year average. The water supply to grain maize was problematic during the vegetative period, but proved to be sufficient during the flowering and early grain-filling stage, with a positive yield outlook at country level., JRC.D.5-Food Security

According to this May issue of the crop monitoring Bulletin for Europe, the yield forecasts for almost all crops were revised downwards at the EU level, and most markedly for rapeseed, winter barley and winter wheat. In the case of spring barley, an upward revision of the yield forecast in Spain counterbalanced the downward revision in other countries. As the summer crop season has just started, most of the country-level yield forecasts for summer crops are still based on historical trends or average values. In much of western, central and eastern Europe, weather conditions were similar to those reported in the April Bulletin: predominantly above-average temperatures, high radiation levels, and insufficient precipitation to replenish soil moisture levels for the growth of winter and early-sown spring crops. Little or no rain is forecast for the coming days in most of these regions, where winter cereals are approaching the sensitive flowering stage. In the case of rapeseed, the conditions of water stress already experienced partially coincided with the flowering and/or early grain filling stage. In eastern Romania and western Ukraine, crops are stunted and present signs of wilting and early leaf senescence. Rainfall since the end of April facilitated the sowing and emergence of late-planted spring crops and summer crops in these regions, alleviating the difficulties caused by very dry top soils (as mentioned in the April issue of the Bulletin). However, many emerging crops present uneven or patchy stands due to the previous dry conditions, and will require more rainfall to adequately sustain growth. In contrast, a favourable rainfall surplus was observed in western and eastern Mediterranean countries. Favourable weather conditions also prevailed in northern Europe and the Atlantic region. Rainfall in the Maghreb region occurred too late in the season to be beneficial for winter crops., JRC.D.5-Food Security

According to this June issue of the crop monitoring Bulletin for Europe, the yield forecasts for EU winter crops, (mainly wheat, barley and rapeseed) were revised downwards by around 2% compared to May, mainly because of sharp downward revisions for France, Romania and the Benelux countries. The yield outlook for winter crops is now clearly below the 5-year average. A main reason for the poor outlook for winter cereals is a distinct rain deficit that persisted in much of north-western Europe as well as in Hungary and eastern Romania. Recent rains in several of the regions affected arrived too late to improve this negative outlook. Improved outlook for grain maize and sunflowers In contrast, the yield forecasts for EU summer crops such as grain maize and sunflowers were revised upwards, mainly because of the timely arrival of rains in May and June which helped improve the outlook - or to sustain an already positive outlook - for these crops in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Spain. The forecasts for grain maize and sunflowers are currently well above the 5-year average. The yield outlook for spring barley slightly improved at the EU level, due to an upward revision for Spain which outweighed the downward revisions for France, Poland, Germany and several other countries., JRC.D.5-Food Security

According to the April 2020 issue of the JRC MARS Bulletin - Crop monitoring in Europe, western Europe experienced one of the driest starts to spring since 1979, after an exceptionally wet winter. Large parts of Poland, Ukraine and Romania have also faced dry conditions since the end of winter. Winter crops in most of these regions are still in good condition, but more rain is needed to sustain a positive yield outlook. However, the very dry upper soil layers are having a negative impact on the sowing and emergence of spring and summer crops. Cold spells at the end of March and beginning of April challenged sowing and emergence in much of central and south-eastern Europe. A marked rainfall surplus was welcomed in the Iberian Peninsula, Greece, Cyprus and south-eastern Turkey. While labour availability remains a key concern, we have found no evidence that COVID-19 has had any major impact on the sowing of spring and summer crops. So far, the supply of seed, fertiliser and pesticides seems to be adequate and no immediate disruptions are expected. The yield forecast presented in this issue of the MARS bulletin are still mostly based on historical trends. It is acknowledged that they bear a large margin of uncertainty associated with the rain deficit currently faced in large parts of Europe. Increasingly accurate forecasts can be expected as the season unfolds., JRC.D.5-Food Security

The yield forecast for grain maize has fallen by almost 2%, but this is still above the 5-year average for the EU as a whole. Forecasts are distinctly below the 5-year average for most western and northern-central European countries; well above-average yields are expected for southern-central and south-eastern Europe, particularly for Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. Yield forecasts for sugar beet, potatoes and green maize, which were already below the 5-year average at EU level, have been revised further downwards. The productivity of pastures in northern, central and western Europe has also been negatively impacted. The yield outlook for sunflowers remains firmly above the 5-year average. Forecasts for winter crops and spring cereals essentially remained the same. The season has closed in most regions, and crops have been harvested under adequate weather conditions., JRC.D.5-Food Security

Above-average rainfall in Italy, south-eastern Europe and south-eastern parts of the Iberian Peninsula instigated the replenishment of soil moisture reserves, which in several regions had been critically low, with substantial benefits for winter crops and the early development of spring- and summer crops. Large parts of northern-central Europe experienced a marked rainfall deficit since mid-March. April was particularly dry in these regions. Winter crops are negatively affected in northern Poland, eastern and north-eastern Germany and north-western Czechia, especially those on light sandy soils. Emerging spring and summer crops were also impacted. On balance, the improvements to the yield outlook for winter cereals in southern Europe were largely offset by reduced yield forecasts in northern regions, resulting in a slight upward revision at the EU level. The distinctly colder-than-usual conditions that occurred in large parts of Europe in early May slowed down winter crop development, but frost damage to annual crops (such as flowering rapeseed stands) was limited to local occurrences., JRC.D.5-Food Security