Any advantages to European agriculture from a warming world will be outweighed by the losses from extreme events and environmental stress, leading to a probable large economic loss for farming in the next 30 years, research on the impacts of the climate crisis has found.
Heatwaves this year and last year have exposed the vulnerability of agriculture, according to the assessment from Europe’s green watchdog, the European Environment Agency.
Across Europe, the overall economic loss to agriculture from climate change is likely to be as high as 16% by 2050, though there will be large regional variations, and some crops will be hit harder than others.