Abstract
The objective of this study is to understand which requirements for cereal cultivars—with regard to climate change adaptation—are in demand by farmers and advisors, and to clarify whether there are any differences in their assessments. A comparative survey was used to collect data from 410 farmers and 114 advisors in Germany. The majority of both farmers and advisors reported perceivable effects of climatic change on plant production. The increase in droughts and hot spells, the increased incidence of torrential rain, and mild winters were mentioned as the main effects of climate change. For climate change adaptation, the farmers and advisors mostly relied on a locally-adapted cultivar selection. It is estimated that eco-stability, grain yield, resistance to lodging and drought tolerance are important cultivar properties. In the study, farmers and advisors equally pointed out the need for additional cultivar evaluation according to eco-stability. Finally, only minor differences regarding farmers’ and advisors’ assessments were found within the study. The outcome of this research points to the need of implementing farmers’ demands in cultivar recommendations. For example, an impartial assessment of cultivars’ eco-stability could help support the choice of cultivars and reduce the growing risks in cereal production with regard to climate change.
Highlights
Changing climatic conditions play a significant role in shaping agricultural production, at present and in future [1,2]
The major objectives of this paper are first to investigate the demand for specific requirements for cereal cultivars with respect to climate change adaptation farmers and agricultural advisors; and second, to clarify the hypothesis as to whether there are any differences in the context of this assessment between farmers and advisors
The first question was “Have you perceived climatic changes that you attribute to global climate change, in German cereal production?” The results show that 85% of the farmers and 90% of the advisors (Table 1) have perceived climatic variations which seem to have an effect on cereal production
Summary
Changing climatic conditions play a significant role in shaping agricultural production, at present and in future [1,2]. Among other things, will be subject to generally increasing temperatures, decreasing summer precipitation, and an increase in precipitation during winter months [8]. Against this background, there is a need to understand how farmers might cope with climatic variability and implement adaptation strategies in cereal production [9]. Farmers’ concerns surrounding climate change refers to the potentially negative effect it could have on agricultural productivity [11,12], like drought stress or increased risk of pests and diseases [13]. The effect of climate change on plant production depends partially on the inner attitude of farmers to adapt to climatic variations
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