S15 - Session P3 - Adaptation of vegetable farmers to climate change in the Parisian region: a participatory approach using climate data

Authors: Nabil Touili, Christine Aubry, Nathalie De Noblet-Ducoudré, Kevin Morel *

For vegetable farmers, climate change brings many issues (e.g droughts, extreme temperatures, increased climatic variability, increased or new pressure of pests, weeds and diseases) but also new opportunities (e.g new crops, extending seasons). Our aim is to explore and support, within the framework of a participatory approach, the adaptation pathways of vegetable growers at the farm level in the Île-de-France (Parisian) region to face the complex and interrelated challenges of climate change. This paper is based on a qualitative analysis from seven workshops involving a panel of experts and vegetable growers with contrasting farm types (organic and conventional, diversity of scale, crops and marketing channels). From a large list of crops and climatic conditions (e.g. high and low temperatures, late frosts, low rainfall, air humidity, radiation, winds, heat waves, droughts and floods), in the first workshop we identified the relevant climatic factors and thresholds to which specific vegetables are particularly sensitive. Projections were then developed at the regional scale for the 2030-2050 horizon using the CNRM model (RCP4.5) in the DRIAS portal (allowing to draw French regionalized climate scenarios). Interviews with experts of water management and biotic stresses were carried out to enrich these projections. Based on these inputs, the following workshops (in December 2021 and February 2022) will focus on the adaptation strategies according to farm types (i) for different vegetable groups, (ii) at the farm and (iii) regional level. By IHC 2022, we will be able to present the results of growers' discussions on the combination of farming practices (e.g choice of cultivars, crop planning, irrigation techniques, tillage practices and soil management, cover crops, intercropping, agroforestry, biological control, equipment) and marketing strategies (e.g crop abandonment or introduction). We will share farmers' perceptions of favouring and impeding factors to adaptation and further perspective of collective action and/or political support.