The UK Climate Resilience Programme ran from 2019 to 2023

CROP-NET: Monitoring and predicting the effects of climate change on crop yields (webinar)

UK Climate Resilience Programme Webinar Series 2021

Date: 16 June, 12.30-1.30pm BST

Speakers: Richard Pywell (UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology); Julian Gold, Farm Manager, Hendred Estate, Oxfordshire

Chair: Kate Lonsdale

See links to a video of the webinar and slides below

Abstract

CROP-NET has engaged with farmers, the farming industry and policy makers to explore their experiences, attitudes and responses to extreme weather and climate change. Our findings revealed a number of actions that would support adaptation to climate change, including improved industry collaboration, farmer-to-farmer learning, and decision support tools. We worked with these stakeholders to co-design a simple tool to enable farmers to explore future climate impacts on yields for their fields and farms, and to benchmark them against regional and national trends. This involved building crop and grass growth models that integrate real-time earth observation data to provide accurate within year prediction of yields. Model predictions were validated against precision yield data collected from over 2000 fields across GB. Our models incorporated bias-corrected UKCP18 climate predictions to forecast future yields to 2080. The Crop-NET models have been incorporated into a new UK climate risk and adaptation framework under the OpenCLIM project.

Presenter biography

Professor Richard Pywell

Prof Richard Pywell leads Biodiversity research at UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. He has 30 years’ experience of research, monitoring and evaluation of agri-environmental policies in the UK and Europe. His research focuses on restoring and managing natural capital within intensively managed agricultural ecosystems in order to enhance the delivery of ecosystem services and livelihoods. He works closely with academics, practitioners, policy-makers and the farming industry to co-design solutions to pressing environmental challenges. He currently leads the Achieving Sustainable Agricultural Systems (ASSIST) research programme – a major government-funded research programme to develop efficient and sustainable farming systems that are resilient to future environmental change.

Stakeholder biography

Julian Gold, Farm Manager, Hendred Estate, Oxfordshire

After a short spell on the family, Julian has spent 34 years managing farms and large estates in the UK and overseas. He is FACTS and BASIS trained Farm Manager, and has a commitment to producing food in an efficient and environmentally sustainable manner. Julian is often featured in the farming press and he is frequently asked to speak at farming conferences. He is keen to improve the flow of knowledge between farmers and the scientific community. Julian was one of the first designated AHDB Monitor Farms designed to improve farmer to farmer knowledge exchange and he plays a key role in the ASSIST- Achieving Sustainable Agricultural Systems programme (a UKRI-funded programme to increase sustainability of food production and resilience to climate change). Julian is on the committee of SEESOIL (South East England branch of the British Society of Soil Scientists) and was awarded Soil Farmer of the Year in 2019.

View the video and presentation slides for the webinar: