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1.1. MOTIVATION FOR THE STUDY

Amongst the various global economic sectors, agriculture has been described as being the most sensitive to climate change and its economic impact (Stern, 2007). Changes in temperature and climatic conditions can influence crop development and growth and, in turn, yields and crop quality. The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted increases in the frequency of heavy precipitation events, more frequent and widespread droughts, and a likely increase in the frequency of intense tropical cyclonic activity (Easterling et al., 2007). This will have significant consequences on food and other agro-ecosystem production, over and above the impacts of changes in the mean variables alone (Bateset al., 2008).

To add to these, one cannot discuss the impact of climate change on crops without taking into consideration the effect of change on their diseases. According to a review by Anderson et. al (2004), pre-harvest pest and disease damage in the eight most important food and cash crops worldwide accounts for approximately 42% of the attainable crop production, which in the mid-1990s amounted to a production value of over US$300 billion. In the U.S.A alone, crop losses to all plant pathogens total approximately $33 billion per year (Pimentel et al., 2005). The cost to US farmers of fungicides alone is approximately $720 million annually (Pimentel et al., 2005). In the UK, economic loss due to plant pathogens amounts to 8.3% of potential production, or about US$ 2.7 billion per year (Pimentelet al., 2001). These costs and

changes largely related to trade, land use and severe weather events (Andersonet al., 2004). However, when the circumstances are right, plant diseases could develop into severe epidemics that could have devastating impacts on farming communities, lead to strife, and sometimes even social unrest.

In 1943, an estimated 2 million people died during the Great Bengal Famine owing to the high dependence of most of the population on a single crop, rice, which was attacked by the fungus Cochliobolus miyabeanus (Strange and Scott, 2005). This episode contrasts to another epidemic, the southern corn leaf blight epidemic of 1970–71 in the USA whereby, although in some areas the crop was completely destroyed by Cochliobolus heterostrophus, alternative sources of nutrition were plentiful so no one died of starvation (Strange and Scott, 2005).

The impacts of plant disease are often felt beyond the farm and farming community. In a study by Windels (2000) on the impacts ofFusariumhead blight in the Northern Great Plains during the 1990s, the worst plant disease to hit the US since the stem rust epidemics of the 1950s, wheat and barley losses caused by scab epidemics were estimated at close to US$3 billion. Apart from severely crippling the wheat and barley industries, the epidemic drove producers to financial ruin and human hardship, and resulted in rural communities dwindling away. In circumstances of financial hardship, producers often give up or retire early, particularly when they are subjected to successive years of net financial losses (Windels, 2000). Some even quit before their assets are gone. Others reduce the number of acres farmed or rent out their land and seek full-time employment. These large scale losses from plant disease, however, can often be followed by a drastic injection of research funds into finding a solution to combating the disease, as has happened with the Fusarium head blight epidemics in the USA (Windels, 2000).

To reduce vulnerability to such losses, the USA and Canada have established sophisticated multiple peril crop insurance programmes that help farmers compensate their losses (Ibarra and Skees, 2007). Heavy government subsidies are used (e.g., in the USA farmers pay only about 30 percent of the total costs of the agricultural insurance). Often when these safeguard measures are not available, farmers are forced to give up farming, a decision which, for some farm families, could be personally devastating since it could mean changing a way of life, often being the only life the family has ever known for generations (Windels, 2000). In some areas

in the USA, particularly in north-western Minnesota, agencies that deal with the mental strife that comes with farm closures due to disease loss have been set up to help farm families make the transition from life on the land to the job market (Windels, 2000). In lower-income countries, however, Government cannot afford to facilitate income transfers, since a large proportion of the population is often engaged in farming, and the majority of farmers would not have enough income to put a small amount aside to provide for disaster relief. Nevertheless, due to the larger proportion of the population in developing countries being involved in agricultural production or related industries, catastrophic agricultural losses will have a much greater impact on GDP than may occur in developed countries (Ibarra and Skees, 2007).

In view of this, there are increasing calls for research on climate impacts involving plant disease, to focus on assessing the social and economic impacts on the farms themselves and on the wider agricultural sector that is being studied, since this has been largely ignored to date (Barnes et al., 2010). Studies that are in essence interdisciplinary, that link natural science with social science studies are increasingly seen as being essential in developing solutions to adaptation in vulnerable sectors (Rosenzweig and Wilbanks, 2010).

1.2. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The impact of climate change on plant disease has been receiving increasingly more attention by scientists and research entities in the last ten years, as can be witnessed by the increasing number of disease forecast models that have been published (Booth

et al., 2000, Bergot et al., 2004, Salinari et al., 2006, Evans et al., 2008, Turner,

2008). Unfortunately, most climate impact studies involving plant disease fall short of assessing the social and economic impacts that a change in plant disease can have on rural communities (Barneset al., 2010). In view of this, this study attempts to do just that, by studying how one particular agricultural sector might be affected by, and respond to, any changes in disease incidence, by focusing on the social and economic impacts at farm and regional scales. To do this, tools in natural science and social science will be used in tandem, making this study interdisciplinary in nature.

Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), this study will focus on a UK based agricultural sector. After taking into consideration a number of candidate sectors, the UK strawberry sector was chosen as the focus of this study for the following reasons:  It is the highest grossing horticultural crop1 in the UK, by itself contributing to almost 13% of the total value of home produced horticultural crops in 2008 (DEFRA, 2010).

 It is grown throughout the UK, and has a history of cultivation spanning at least a century.

 The plant and crop are susceptible to a large number of diseases.

 It is a dynamic sector that makes use of a number of different cultivation methods, which again are affected by different diseases.

 The sector is a known leader of the UK horticultural industry.

 The strawberry sector has been poorly studied, and no climate impact studies have been conducted on either the sector or crop.

The study will essentially consist of a critical interdisciplinary appraisal of the potential impacts of climate change on strawberry diseases and how these could in turn affect the UK strawberry sector and rural land use. In order to achieve this overall aim, the following specific objectives have been set:

 To examine the history of the UK strawberry sector and changes in practices over a specific timeframe.

 To examine the historiography of plant diseases in the UK.

 To examine the recent restructuring of the strawberry sector and analyse the importance and role of plant disease in this.

 To forecast disease prevalence in the UK strawberry sector using various climate change scenarios.

 To examine the response of strawberry growers to the potential impacts of climate change, and assess the adaptability and vulnerability of the sector.

1

1.2.1

Study approach

The first couple of months involved the preparation of a literature review to familiarise oneself with the extent of existing literature on the subject. This was followed by a brief period spent at FERA in Sand Hutton, York, to obtain data relating to disease outbreaks involving the UK strawberry sector in the past. The earliest existing datasets were found to date back to 1920, and a more or less continuous series of records of outbreaks was obtained up till 2009, from various archives and records held by FERA. After the datasets were tabulated and analysed, further data were collected on the UK strawberry sector during the same time period. Agricultural statistics were collected for the strawberry sector from various annual statistical records gathered by the UK government in the past. This was done in order to obtain a picture of how large the sector was throughout the time period covered by the study, and where strawberries were grown throughout the UK. Data on the production methods used were also collected. Links between the disease outbreaks and production methods used were sought and assessed. Historic weather datasets were also obtained from the Metoffice for a number of locations spanning from 1920 to 2009, and links between disease outbreaks and past weather events were assessed. The collection of data up until this stage (half way through the PhD) had created almost as many questions as answers. To answer some of these questions, particularly on how strawberry farms were set up, and the importance of plant disease in the day-to-day management of the farms, a social science study was conducted through a postal questionnaire targeted at the British strawberry sector. The questionnaire covered various topics, one of which related to climate change and how it might affect growers. Following this, disease forecasting models were built to determine how plant disease incidence will actually change with climate change in Great Britain, under various timeframes and various emission scenarios.

In the final year, the second phase of the social science study was completed through semi-structured interviews with key actors involved in the strawberry sector in two locations in the UK. The two locations were chosen on the basis of their differences in the predicted impacts of climate change on plant diseases. The semi structured interviews were targeted not only at growers, but also at key players in the supply chain. They were used to collect data on the processes driving change in the sector.

The interviews also included a section on climate change and a discussion with the respondents on the potential impacts of climate change on the British strawberry sector and its adaptive potential.

1.2.2

Outline of the thesis

This thesis is structured into 7 chapters. Whilst this first chapter contains the general introduction and the 7th chapter the concluding remarks, the other five chapters (chapters 2-6) largely follow the objectives set in section 1.2. Each of these 5 chapters has its own introduction, literature review, methodology, results and discussion.

The time-frame covered by the study is from 1920 to 2009, to coincide with available disease datasets collected during the first year of the PhD, which are here discussed in chapter 3. As a result, chapter 2 examines agricultural change in the British strawberry sector, over the same period, to enable the study to follow how the strawberry sector has changed in these 90 years. Within it, inferences are made as to how plant disease might have affected these changes. In chapter 4, social science techniques were used to gather further data on the importance of plant disease to the sector, and the processes driving change in the sector in the last two decades. The role of plant disease in possible restructuring of the sector is also assessed.

Following the collection and analysis of data that covered change in the strawberry sector between 1920 and 2009, disease forecasting models were developed in Chapter 5 to assess how disease incidence might change in the next 70 years up till 2080. These are then used in a social science study in chapter 6 that involved representatives from the strawberry sector. In this chapter, the vulnerability and adaptability of the sector to climate change is assessed by taking into consideration the results of the social science study, together with lessons obtained from the past on the influence of plant disease and its importance on the restructuring of the UK strawberry sector.

A conclusion to the thesis is provided in Chapter 7, where an assessment of the outcomes of this study and the methodology used is discussed. This is then followed by suggestions for future work.

Chapter 2

Agricultural change in