Expert sounds alarm over climate change’s impact on Greece’s agriculture sector

By Ahmet Gencturk

ATHENS (AA) – With a considerable number of people including experts, academics and politicians still discussing whether climate change is real or “part of global elites’ agenda,” a prominent Greek expert highlighted that it is already severely affecting Greece’s agricultural sector.

Speaking to Anadolu, Christos Tsadilas of the Hellenic Agricultural Organization said the increased number of major floods and wildfires, both the frequency and duration of heat waves and decrease in rainfall days in the last two decades clearly prove the country is experiencing severe effects of climate change.

Noting that the agricultural sector is affected by climate change through the climatic characteristics of air temperature, precipitation, solar radiation, CO2 concentration and extreme weather events, he said “the effects of climate change on our country’s agriculture are manifested in reduced crop production due to fewer cold days in wintertime for tree crops, the lack of water in some areas leading to crop changes as experienced in the decrease of the cotton cultivation, and the reduction in the number of farm animals, including sheep, goats, pigs and cows.”

The regions of Central Macedonia, Thrace, Peloponnese, the North Aegean and Thessaly are particularly vulnerable to the growing effects of climate change, Tsadilas added.

- Mitigating effects of climate change

Tsadilas suggested that the sector should take a set of unconventional and technological steps to address the effects of climate change, which are forecast to be even more unfavorable in the coming decades.
The use of precise agriculture, for example, would play a great role in understanding local soil types, improving soil quality, making realistic crop choices and managing irrigation timing, planting and harvest moments, among other things, he said.

Similarly, conservation agriculture that promotes minimum soil disruption, maintenance of a permanent soil cover and divergence of plant species would enrich biodiversity and natural biological processes above and below the ground surface which contribute to increased water and nutrient use efficiency as drought is becoming a real danger for the sector, Tsadilas asserted.

Moreover, he said that carbon farming, regarded as one of the major components of climate-smart agriculture, would help in improving soil’s water retention capacity and reducing fertilizer use.

Specifically for the Greek case, Tsadilas noted that Greece is among the countries that have formulated a national strategy for adaptation to climate change which it attempts to implement through 13 regional plans.

However, he emphasized that more needs to be done swiftly and resolutely to address the impacts of climate change.

“Crop restructuring based on new climate data, implementation of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, and restructuring of agricultural research are among the measures I would propose,” Tsadilas said.

- Devastating impact of last year’s floods in central Greece

About the floods from Storm Daniel and Storm Elias which hit the central region of Thessaly especially hard, Tsadilas drew attention to the severe damage to the soil, which is crucial for the ecosystem to function.

“The production of biomass, including food for humans and animals, and fiber, climate regulation through the balance of greenhouse gases and mitigation of extreme temperature fluctuations, the supply of clean water, the protection of biodiversity, the control of insects and diseases, and cultural services are all highly dependent on this natural non-renewable resource,” he said.

While this is a fact, last year’s floods, depending on the location of the areas concerning the water flow, have caused all forms of erosion including simple surface and gully erosion and massive movement of soil masses over a large area, with the result that at the moment, it has changed the shape of these areas from slight to radical, Tsadilas said.

“Against this background, apart from short-term measures like rehabilitation of rural roads including sloping land, irrigation and drainage canals, a series of long-term measures including but not limited to the establishment of agro-climatic zones and restructuring of crops and planning of agricultural production based on the new climate data in the context of the European Union’s new Common Agricultural Policy and the UN decisions on the 17 sustainable development goals should be implemented,” he said.