AFSI Newsletter - September 2021 |
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Climate Adaptation & Mitigation in Fruit & Vegetable Supply Chains Project Annual Workshop |
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Jointly managed by the Agriculture & Food Systems Institute and the University of Florida, the project Fruit and Vegetable Supply Chains: Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Opportunities is funded by a $3 million grant from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA). Through the development of novel integrated modeling methods, a transdisciplinary team of scientists, extension specialists, practitioners, and students from several institutions have been working to identify and test adaptation and mitigation opportunities for fruit and vegetable crops since 2017, with the overarching goal of enhancing the productivity, resilience, and sustainability of U.S. produce supply chains. This year’s annual workshop focused on finalizing the modeling results in anticipation of increased stakeholder engagement and extension. More information about the project, along with a short video showcasing the team's methodology, is available on the AFSI website. |
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Helping to Ensure a Nutritious Food Supply in the Face of Climate Change |
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Before reaching consumers, fruits and vegetables pass through many post-harvest steps that also consume energy, water, and other resources, as well as emit greenhouse gases. AFSI has long recognized the broad food system challenge of meeting increased demand for nutritious foods necessary for a healthy diet, given the impact of climate change and increased competition for land, water, and other natural resources. |
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AFSI published a keystone white paper in June 2014 identifying fruit and vegetable supply chains as warranting particular attention, and a year later, it co-organized a workshop held at UC Davis, where 21 public and private sector experts could share perspectives on what is needed for a model-based sustainability assessment of future domestic production, availability, and price for representative fruits and vegetables. Participants concluded that any assessment would require a skilled, multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional team of researchers, educators, and extension specialists, and follow-up work from this workshop led to the proposal and grant funding for the project.
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Over the past four years, the project team of scientists and extension specialists from the University of Florida, Agriculture & Food Systems Institute, Washington State University, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), University of Arkansas, University of Illinois, and World Agricultural Economic and Environmental Services (WAEES) conducted multi-model simulations for target crops to assess the climate change impact on fruit and vegetable production and potential adaptations. The Protocol for US Fruit and Vegetable Crop Modeling contains the team's methodology for simulating climate change impact and adaptation for the production of potatoes, tomatoes, sweet corn, green (snap) beans, carrots, spinach, strawberries, and oranges in the United States.
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Crop, economic, environmental, and life cycle assessment modeling are being used to determine current and future climate and water availability impacts on yield, quality, price, and environmental profile of selected fruit and vegetable crops. This has led to a slew of publications, with the most recent being "Mitigating Sustainability Tradeoffs as Global Fruit and Vegetable Systems Expand to Meet Dietary Recommendations," published earlier this year in Environmental Research Letters. With the modeling work nearing completion, the team is actively working on adding to its publications slate, as well as engaging with stakeholders to ground truth findings and create extension tools to allow practical application of the project's results.
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