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

For vegetable farmers, climate change brings many issues and its impacts may vary by regions and crops. The objective of our exploratory study was to develop a participatory process to investigate collectively with vegetable farmers their priorities and needs to adapt to climate change based on climate data relevant to them. Our work relied on an iterative process involving workshops with agricultural experts and vegetable farmers on 3 contrasting territories of the Parisian Region and climate projections using DRIAS (Data on French Regionalized climate scenarios and Impacts on the environment and Adaptation of Societies). We first identified the relevant climate factors and thresholds to which specific vegetables are particularly sensitive. Simulations, downscaled at the local level (8x8 km area) of the relevant climate factors were provided and discussed with farmers. This allowed us to refine the main climate factors that were judged relevant by farmers to support their strategic thinking about adaptation to climate change. This climate factors were presented at the temporal scales judged relevant by farmers: i) comparison of reference years of the past 19902020, near future 2020- 2040, far future 2040-2060, ii) seasonal scale (winter, spring, summer, autumn). This information, explained to farmers on short videos, was used to carry out an online survey in order to identify the future actions to prioritize to adapt vegetable production to climate change from farmers' perspective in terms of practice exchanges between farmers, training, experimentation, public policy (work in progress). As interactions with farmers showed a strong concern about water use, a dedicated collective workshop will be organized in autumn 2022, combining i) projections of water availability in the region, ii) modeling of increased water needs by farmers, iii) involvement of local authorities to discuss water regulations and governance. To our knowledge, this study is the first attempt to involve vegetable farmers in a collective participatory process about adaptation to climate change based on climate projections with indicators and temporal scales relevant to their specific needs.