Abstract
This is the first study which explores the impact of climate change in Sicily, a small Mediterranean region of Southern Europe. According to research, Mediterranean area has shown large climate shifts in the last century and it has been identified as one of the most prominent “Hot-Spots” in future climate change projections. Since agriculture is an economic activity which strongly depends on climate setting and is particularly responsive to climate changes, it is important to understand how such changes may affect agricultural profitability in the Mediterranean region. The aim of the present study is to assess the expected impact of climate change on permanent crops cultivated in Sicilian region (Southern Italy). By using data from Farm Accountancy Data Network and Ensembles climatic projections for 2021-2050 period, we showed that the impact of climate change is prominent in this region. However, crops respond to climatic variations in a different manner, highlighting that unlike the strong reduction in profitability of grapevine and citrus tree, the predicted average Net Revenue of olive tree is almost the same as in the reference period (1961-1990).
Highlights
Climate changes are already facts affecting ecosystems, economy and human well-being
The choice of the dependent variable between land value per hectare and net revenue (NR) per hectare largely depends on data availability, none of the two choices is free from defects (Mendelsohn and Dinar, 2009)
The results obtained describe the effect of explanatory variables – climatic variables and control variables – on NR per hectare of the farms of Sicilian Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) panel (Table 2)
Summary
Climate changes are already facts affecting ecosystems, economy and human well-being. 1/2019 trations and methane are the highest of the last 800,000 years This has contributed to altering the Earth’s energy balance, which is highly sensitive to such changes (Lanfranchi and Giannetto, 2018). The alteration of the earth’s energetic balance is associated with the occurrence of extreme weather events, change of temperature and seasonal changes of weather (IPCC, 2014). This has important implications on the agricultural sector, the influence of changing climate conditions on agriculture is growing since the primary sector is the main user of water and land (Fezzi and Bateman, 2012; Ciscar et al, 2011). Production and quality of cultivated crops and their water use are directly influenced by local climate variables and atmospheric CO2 (Ciscar et al, 2011), such that, climate change has an important effect on the sustainable development of agriculture and food production
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