Joint European research programme to mapping out agriculture and food security in changing climate

The goal is to improve the characterisation of European food security due to climate change and to enhance adaptation capacity through improvements in modeling of impacts of climate change. Various research groups of Wageningen UR (University & Research centre) participate in the consortium. This ambitious project has estimated total costs of around fifteen million euro.

The Joint Programming Initiative on food security, agriculture and climate change (FACCE-JPI), which was adopted in October 2010 for launching by the European Council, aims to address the challenge of providing sufficient high quality food through sustainable agriculture in the context of climate change and involves twenty one European countries overall. This initiative was established to enhance European research capacity in the light of the projected increase of world population to about nine billion people by the mid-century along with an increasing demand for food, feed, fibre and bio-fuels, all in a context a changing climate and under a more stringent environmental regulation.

The FACCE-JPI Scientific Research Agenda defines five core research themes to address these challenges. In this context, it was decided to launch a pilot action in July 2011 entitled ‘A detailed climate change risk assessment for European agriculture and food security’. It will address the modeling of impacts of climate change on European agriculture and food security and the reduction of uncertainties in climate change scenarios. An innovative, tailor-made instrument, a ‘Knowledge Hub’, was developed by the FACCE – JPI, associating three complementary dimensions: networking, research and capacity building. All participating research groups, which were selected at the national level, worked together to submit one proposal which includes three coordinated and integrated networks on Crops, Grasslands and livestock and on Economics and Trade and has developed a joint research plan.

The Knowledge Hub was positively reviewed by an independent panel of outstanding scientists from the field. The FACCE – JPI Governing Board are thus pleased to announce the launch of the Knowledge Hub, FACCE MACSUR, which will start in June 2012 for three years with the possibility to be extended a further two years.