CAPRI long-term climate change scenario analysis: The AgMIP approach

The current paper investigates the long-term global effects of crops productivity changes under different climate scenarios and the impact of biofuels expansion using the Common Agricultural Policy Regionalised Impact (CAPRI) model. These analyses are conducted in the framework of the AgMIP project (Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project). The results indicate that globally there will be both winners and losers, with some regions benefitting from agricultural production adjustment as a result of climate change whilst most regions suffering losses in production and consumption. Biofuel expansion leads to land relocation away from crop agricultural commodity production to new energy crops which is reflected in lower production levels of agricultural commodities and higher agricultural prices.JRC.J.4-Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Econom

An Overview of (International) Large-Scale Land Transactions (LSLT) in the context of Food Security

The present report provides an overview of the scale, speed, drivers, key players and main expected consequences in terms of food security of the recent wave of (international) large-scale land transactions (LSLT´s) which has taken place at world level in the past years. This task is particularly challenging because a universal definition of what constitutes a ¨large¨ land investment as well as the potential advantages and disadvantages to all involved parties at different levels are not straightforward. Moreover, large-scale land transactions usually present different traits depending on the region in which they take place. Similarly, there is a wide range of investors with what appears to be (at first glance) rather different objectives. An added difficulty is related to the availability of reliable data (IFPRI, 2009). In order to overcome these obstacles, three basic steps were taken: i) Assess whether and how the wave of land deals is a new phenomenon, provide a working definition in order to identify actors and motives in both global and regional scenarios, ii) Understand why this new wave of LSLT´s emerged and establish a connection to food security challenges iii) Reflect on the theoretical and empirical consequences of LSLT´s at productivity, environmental and social level.JRC.J.4-Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Econom

The role of the Eurasian wheat belt to regional and global food security

Food security remains to be a major societal concern. In the light of the current expectations of population growth, world food production has to be massively increased to sustain the associated food demand rise. While agricultural productivity was rising during recent decades in the US, Europe and also in some developing countries, the corresponding growth rates lately appeared to be slowing down. In fact, the only world region with a significant amount of arable land, which currently is not under cultivation and which at the same time is, moreover, experiencing rising productivity figures, is the so called 'Eurasian wheat belt', comprising of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the Central Asian countries, namely Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kirgizstan. In this light, the Joint Research Centre and the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development organized a thematic workshop, held during 20 – 22 May 2014 in Istanbul/Turkey, set up to bring experts on the matter together and to discuss to what extent these countries could play a role for regional and international food security. Following the workshop analysis and discussion, this report provides a comprehensive technical overview of the wheat production, and the main factors to achieve full production potential across the Eurasian wheat belt with regards to national, regional and global issues of cereal supply and food security in evolving global markets. It reviews key horizontal issues, such as land policy, credit and finance, privatization, farm structures, social consequences of transition, environmental challenges, against the backdrop of agrarian reforms implemented during the transition period. In addition the report explores production potential and corresponding institutional and policy restrictions in a series of Eurasian countries. Finally, the report closes with expert opined policy-relevant conclusions as a basis for policy suggestions and recommendations.JRC.J.4-Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Econom

The Production of National Agricultural Production. The Methodologies Developed by the MARS Project

Abstract not availableNA-NOT AVAILABL

Smoothing Time Series of Satellite Derived Vegetation Indices for Global Monitoring of Agricultural Productivity and Food Security

A global observation capacity is required for agricultural production forecasts and food security alert systems. The European Commission¿s Joint Research Center (JRC) uses low resolution satellite imagery to map vegetation status. The derived maps are used for near real-time production forecasts as well as for the anticipation of food security problems. The daily imagery used by JRC covers the entire globe at 1 km spatial resolution. An uninterrupted time series is available since 1998. To highlight the response of the vegetation, red and near infrared spectral responses are combined into a widely used vegetation index; the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). Growth anomalies are detected at the pixel scale by comparing the actual NDVI with the long term average NDVI. Sensing the Earth surface is not trivial as the electromagnetic radiation, which carries the information about the surface status, is scattered and absorbed by the Earth atmosphere. In addition, clouds may (partly) obstruct the field of view of the sensor. Altogether these perturbations lead to NDVI signals which are far lower of what would have been observed under perfect measurement conditions. To eliminate the strongest perturbations, the daily imagery is generally analyzed as 10-days maximum value composite (MVC) imagery (Holben et al., 1986). In this simple pre-processing step, for a given pixel location, only the highest NDVI value is retained for each 10-day (dekadal) period, thus minimizing the mentioned perturbations. Nevertheless, even dekadal NDVI-MVC images still contain perturbations. Sharp edge lines may appear in regions where insufficient registrations were available for the compositing process. Missing values occur for example at higher latitudes during polar night. Clouds and/or atmospheric conditions with high aerosol load may persist longer than 10 days, leading to sub-optimal MVC outputs which are easily recognized as irregular dips. The oral presentation aims at presenting and comparing three different smoothing strategies: ¿ Best index slope extraction (BISE) algorithm (Viovy et al., 1992) ¿ Weighted least square regression (Swets et al., 1999) ¿ Savitzky-Golay polynomial filtering (Savitzky & Golay, 1964; Chen et al., 2004) The algorithms are currently used at JRC for minimizing the undesired atmospheric/cloud effects, with the ultimate goal to enhance the signal stemming from the land surface. All approaches work within gliding windows of variable size and have been adapted to deal with missing values. Advantages and disadvantages of the different methods will be presented in the context of agricultural production estimates and for deriving phenological indicators useful in global change studies.JRC.G.3-Monitoring agricultural resource

The European Land Use and Cover Area-Frame Statistical Survey

Abstract. LUCAS (Land Use/Cover Area-frame Survey) has been launched by Eurostat to obtain harmonised agricultural and environmental data for the European Union (EU). Major surveys have been carried out in 2001, 2003 and 2006. We describe the methodology and sampling plan: non-stratified two-stage sample of points in 2001 and 2003, and two-phase sampling with incomplete stratification of non-clustered points in 2006. The relative efficiency of both sampling plans is analyzed concluding that the LUCAS 2006 method was superior for the EU context. We also analyze the sources of non-sampling errors, expected accuracy and current evolution of LUCAS.JRC.DG.G.3-Monitoring agricultural resource

Assessing the Error of Polygonal Area Measurements: a General Formulation with Applications to Agriculture

This paper proposes a simple and general theoretical framework for the error assessment of area measurements of planar polygonal surfaces. The general formulation is first developed, both for the case of correlated and for the case of independent measurements, where a compact formulation can be obtained for the latter. These results are then used in the context of agriculture, with the aim of assessing field area measurement errors when using a global positioning system (GPS) device, enhanced using a simulated EGNOS (European geostationary navigation overlay service) time series. They show that for GPS/EGNOS measurements made by an operator moving along the border of a field, area measurement error is linked both to the operator speed and to the acquisition rate of the GPS device. For typical field sizes found in the European Union, ranging from 0.5 ha to 5 ha, the coefficient of variation (CV) for area measurement errors is about 1% to 5%. These results depend on the field area, but they can be considered to be insensitive with respect to the field shape. They also show that field area measurement errors can be limited if an appropriate combination of operator speed and GPS acquisition rate is selected. Though the practical case study presented here is focused on polygonal agricultural fields, it is expected that various other fields (medical and remotely sensed imagery, geographical information system data, computer vision analysis,...) should also benefit from the theoretical results hereby obtained.JRC.G.3-Agricultur

UNE TUMEUR LATERO-CERVICALE RARE: LE KYSTE HYDATIQUE. MISE AU POINT PHYSIOPATHOLOGIQUE ET DIAGNOSTIQUE DE L'ECHINOCOCCOSE

A rare case of hydatid cyst located in the musculature of the neck without any other detectable site is reported. With the cycle of the taenia echinococcus as reminder several pathophysiological hypotheses which might explain the inefficacy of the hepatic and pulmonary filter are discussed. A concise revue of the recent literature concerning diagnosis and treatment of the disease is given.SCOPUS: NotDefined.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Antral gastrin cell proliferation after vagotomy in rats

The total number of antral gastrin cells, the antral surface area and the serum gastrin concentration were determined in two groups of rats. The animals had been submitted at random either to vagotomy and pyloroplasty or to pyloroplasty alone 3 weeks before. The indirect immunoperoxidase reaction and a direct quantitative histological method were used to count the gastrin cells. Radioimmunoassay was used to estimate the serum gastrin concentration. The total number of gastrin cells in the stomach was 52% (p < 0.01) more elevated in the vagotomized animals. Both antral mucosal surface and calculated concentration of gastrin cells per square millimeter of mucosa were significantly higher (0.01 < p < 0.05) in this group of animals. The serum gastrin values were significantly (p < 0.01) more elevated after vagotomy. These observations indicate that vagotomy may induce an antral gastrin cell hyperplasia which could explain in part the hypergastrinemia observed after this surgical procedure.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

The economic impacts of climate change on agriculture: The AgMIP approach

The current paper investigates the long-term global impacts on crop productivity under different climate scenarios using the AgMIP approach (Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project). The paper provides horizontal model intercomparison from eleven economic models as well as a more detailed analysis of the simulated effects from the Common Agricultural Policy Regionalized Impact (CAPRI) model to systematically compare its performance with other AgMIP models and specifically for the Chinese agriculture. CAPRI is a comparative static partial equilibrium model extensively used for medium and long-term economic and environmental policy impact applications. The results indicate that at the global level the climate change will cause an agricultural productivity decrease (between -2% and -15% by 2050), a food price increase (between 1.3% and 56%) and an expansion of cultivated area (between 1% and 4%) by 2050. The results for China indicate that the climate change effects tend to be smaller than the global impacts. The CAPRI simulated effects are in general close to the median across all AgMIP models. Model intercomparison analyses reveal consistency in terms of direction of change to climate change but relatively strong heterogeneity in the magnitude of the effects between models.JRC.J.4-Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Econom