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Denmark

Agriculture and Horticulture

Agriculture and horticulture in numbers

Europe

Agriculture accounts for only a small part of gross domestic production (GDP) in Europe, and it is considered that the overall vulnerability of the European economy to changes that affect agriculture is low (3). However, agriculture is much more important in terms of area occupied (farmland and forest land cover approximately 90 % of the EU's land surface), and rural population and income (4).

Denmark

More than 66% of the land is used for agriculture or horticulture. Woodlands take up 11%, while towns, roads and scattered habitation take up 10%. The rest is nature or listed areas such as lakes, watercourses, heaths, dunes and beaches. Over the last 40 years the agricultural area in Denmark has fallen from 72% of the total area in 1960 to 62% in 2003 (1).


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Benefits from climate change

Global warming leads to a prolongation and intensification of the thermal growing season. Prolongation and warming of this season has already been noticed in many regions: in northern Europe thermal growing season has lengthened by about 1week between 1951 and 2000 (18) and 23 days between 1950 and 2019 (20). The increase of growing season length is largely due to the earlier beginning of the growing season, on average 15 days in the period 1950 - 2019 (20). The intensity of this season (expressed as growing degree day sum) has increased all over Europe after 2000 (19,20).

A longer growing season is expected to allow for the introduction of new crops and increased yields, meaning greater productivity in agriculture and a need for increased fertilization (1).

For Danish agriculture, the overall effects are estimated to be advantageous. Changes in cultivation practice can be implemented at short notice, and production is expected to grow with rising temperature and CO2-concentrations (2,15,16).


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The world food system in 2080

The world food system in the twenty-first century has been assessed, under various future scenarios of population, economic growth and climate change, addressing the questions: what are the likely impacts of climate change on the world’s agricultural resources? How do climate impacts compare to socioeconomic pressures over this century? Where and how do significant interactions arise? According to the authors, a fully coherent, unified data and modelling system has been used for the first time (14).


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Vulnerabilities Europe - Climate change not main driver

Socio-economic factors and technological developments

Climate change is only one driver among many that will shape agriculture and rural areas in future decades. Socio-economic factors and technological developments will need to be considered alongside agro-climatic changes to determine future trends in the sector (4).


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Adaptation strategies - Denmark

Short term adaptation can optimize production under given conditions. Long term adaptation is expected to involve changes in agriculture's structure, technology and land use, irrigation systems, etc, as well as development and adaptation of new species and types of crops (15).

Adaptation strategies - The world food system in 2080

The world food system in the twenty-first century has been assessed, under various future scenarios of population, economic growth and climate change. Results suggest that socioeconomic development over this century will greatly alter production, trade, distribution and consumption of food products worldwide, as a consequence of population growth, economic growth, and diet changes in developing countries. Climate change will additionally modify agricultural activities, probably increasing any gaps between developing and developed countries. Adaptation strategies, both on-farm and via market mechanisms, will be important contributors to limiting the severity of impacts (14).


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References

The references below are cited in full in a separate map 'References'. Please click here if you are looking for the full references for Denmark.

  1. Danish Ministry of the Environment (2005)
  2. Danish Government (2008)
  3. EEA (2006), in: EEA, JRC and WHO (2008)
  4. EEA, JRC and WHO (2008)
  5. EEA (2003)
  6. Rounsevell et al. (2005)
  7. UN (2004), in: Alcamo et al. (2007)
  8. Ewert et al. (2005), in: Alcamo et al. (2007)
  9. Van Meijl et al. (2006), in: Alcamo et al. (2007)
  10. JNCC (2007), in: Anderson (ed.) (2007)
  11. European Commission (2006), in: Anderson (ed.) (2007)
  12. EEA (2004), in: Anderson (ed.) (2007)
  13. IPCC (2007), in: Anderson (ed.) (2007)
  14. Fischer et al. (2005)
  15. Danish Ministry of Climate and Energy (2010)
  16. Moriondo et al. (2010)
  17. Hoglind et al. (2013)
  18. Linderholm et al. (2008), in: Ruosteenoja et al. (2016)
  19. Spinoni et al. (2015), in: Ruosteenoja et al. (2016)
  20. Aalto et al. (2022)

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