ADAPT-CATMILK – Adaptation in Austrian Cattle and Milk Production

Climate change will pose considerable challenges to Austrian agriculture which will likely be affected by a higher frequency of extreme weather events and more volatile commodity prices. In this project the spatial, economic and social dimension of these threats were explored and expected consequences for the most important agricultural activity in Austria, cattle and dairy farming were evaluated. By aligning scenarios on projections of climate conditions and socio-economic developments with those developed in other EU countries, the results are consistent with state of the art analyses on climate change in Europe. A well established life cycle analysis (LCA) model from the UK was adapted to the Austrian situation in order to quantify upstream emissions which are usually not accounted for in sector analyses of green house gas emissions. The results allow policy makers to base their decisions on evidence that is not limited to the Austrian situation but includes spillover effects to foreign countries as well. Farmers are able to benefit directly from results of this project because stakeholders from the farm sector were involved in the analyses from the beginning. An additional benefit of the project is that it was closely integrated to the activities of the international network of researchers working on climate change and food security in Europe and thus contributed to the capacity on climate change research in the EU.