MED-GOLD

MED-GOLD is a 54-months research and innovation project that aims to demonstrate the proof-of-concept for climate services in agriculture by developing case studies for three major Mediterranean food systems: grape and wine, olive and olive oil, and durum wheat and pasta.

These systems have utmost climatic, ecological, economic, and cultural relevance, being both hallmarks of the Mediterranean diet and global food commodities. Hence, the potential for developing climate services with high added value to society is immense (e.g., https://sdgs.un.org/goals).

Agriculture is weather-driven and climate-constrained, with expected increased vulnerability to crop failure and pest damage under climate change. In the Mediterranean region, higher than average projected climate change will further threaten an extremely rich and intertwined biological and cultural diversity.

The long-term goal of this project is to make European and global agriculture and food systems more resilient to climate change, using climate services.

Main outcomes include prototype climate services co-produced and tested with major industrial players of the global food system, using MED-GOLD linked methods for user engagement and cloud-based processing and visualization of data (e.g., https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/). This enables unprecedented replicability and scalability across regions, sectors, and users, as tested in Colombia for coffee—the world’s top agricultural commodity.