PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Agricultural practices have always been adapted to the climatic conditions. The increasing frequency of extreme weather events, the magnitude of climate change and the difficulties in accessing future climate scenarios are, however, challenging farmers adaptive capacity, and increasing the need to implement adaptation strategies at farm and value chain levels. Farmers are highly exposed to adverse effects of climate change and need to know which adaptation measures are suitable and feasible for their local environment. Climate change directly impacts yields, putting at risk farmers revenue and thus endangering their businesses. Also, climate change affects the stability of the quality requirements of the products, along the entire value chain. Finally, the extent of climate change poses a risk to affordability and insurability of climate-related risks.
OBJECTIVES
LIFE ADA will implement a public-private partnership between insurers, public administrations, scientific institutes and producer organisations to increase farmers adaptive capacity. The project will focus on three value chains that represent (together), at national level, 40% of the revenue for the whole agricultural sector, almost 20% of farmers, 20% of utilised agricultural area, and 40% of the workforce of the specialised firms.
Specific aims are to:
Transfer knowledge on climatic scenarios together with risk management and adaptive measures to enhance farmers capacity to tackle current and future climate risks;Build tools to support farmers decision-making processes in shapingefficient adaptation plans at farm and supply chain levels;Frame a coherent policy strategy at regional level to support farmers adaptive planning; andFoster an innovative approach for insurers to build capacity on risk reduction to maintain insurability of farmers in the long-term despite the increase of catastrophic and systemic risks.The project is in line with the EU Strategy on adaptation to climate change. The strategic importance of risk management for the future of agriculture is also relevant to the new CAP for 2021-2027. At national scale, the projects objectives are consistent with the Italian Adaptation Plan and the National Rural Development Programme.
RESULTS
Expected results: LIFE ADAs main expected result is farmers' increased capacity to implement efficient climate change adaptation strategies to strengthen their ability to manage risks, prevent damage and ensure the maintenance of the value produced along value chains.
To ensure a wide outreach the project will:
Build a tool to enable individual farmers and producer organisations to plan adaptive interventions, realising 250 Adaptation Action Plans and 6 Supply Chain Adaptation Action Plans, reaching 6 000 farmers using the ADA tool in 4 regions and 15 000 farmers at national level (10% and 6% of farmers in the 3 selected value chains, respectively);Implement a regional strategy for the three selected supply chains (integrated in the Emilia-Romagna regions unified strategy for climate change mitigation and adaptation) and two regional financial schemes;Draw guidelines to facilitate the projects replicability in other supply chains;Draw guidelines for other regions to replicate the public-private partnership model, which favours a better adaptation strategy and legislative design;Involve European networks and relevant stakeholders with four workshops and a side event;Improve climate resilience and adaptive capacity in at least four regions and in various economic sectors (e.g. insurance, agriculture and agro-industry) by setting Adaptation Action Plans and 6 Supply Chain Adaptation Action Plans;Transfer the capacity to draw strategies and define integrated plans for climate change adaptation starting from specific vulnerabilities in the agricultural and agro-industrial sectors (territorial vulnerability, need to define adaptation strategies, risk prevention, modification of production processes and crops);In the long-term, the potential number of users of tools developed by the project in the 3 selected value chains are 242 000 farmers, representing around 1 140 000 workers and 2.6 million hectares of utilised agricultural area; andProjects expected impacts are reduction by 1% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, 2% ammonia (NH3) emissions, 5% water consumption, 5% energy consumption, as well as a 3% improvement of inhabitants resilience to flooding and 17% increase of agricultural areas' sustainable management. These figures were estimated on the basis of 15 000 farmers using the tool by the end of the project.
