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From heatwaves to droughts, heavy rainfall to late frosts, climate change is having a profound impact on agriculture, disrupting plant growth, damaging crops and making yields far less predictable.
But agriculture isn’t just a victim of climate change, it’s also a cause. In fact, agriculture is a significant source of the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.
Against this backdrop, farmers must make dozens of critical decisions each season – when to irrigate, fertilise, protect crops or harvest. “When it comes to making these decisions, farmers can no longer rely on traditional knowledge based on past weather patterns,” explains Dionysis Bochtis, director at the Institute for Bio-Economy and Agri-Technology (CERTH) in Greece.
“What they need is data that can capture the microclimate conditions that matter at the field level.” Helping to deliver such data is the STARGATE project.
“We’ve developed and validated a suite of climate-smart agricultural tools that bring together local weather, climate, soil and crop information to support better, risk-aware decisions on the farm and in rural policy,” says Bochtis, who coordinates the project.
A digital almanac
At the heart of the project is a new generation of high-resolution climate intelligent tools that combine satellite data, advanced weather models, sensor measurements and historical climate records. “Hyperlocal weather and microclimate data allow us to provide the short-term forecasts and early warnings about heatwaves, heavy rainfall and frost that farmers need to take timely preventive actions,” adds Bochtis.
The project also produced climate-risk scenarios and long-term climate services that show how risks will evolve over the coming decades. “Farmers and authorities can use these scenarios and services to design adaptation strategies based on evidence rather than guesswork,” Bochtis notes.
A set of tactical and strategic decision-support tools turns all this data into practical recommendations on irrigation, fertilisation, crop protection and harvest timing, thus reducing uncertainty and operational risk. At the same time, land-suitability models identify which crops and management options are best adapted to current and future conditions, enabling more resilient planting decisions.
All the project’s services have been fully integrated into a single cloud platform. They’ve also been tested in multiple pilot regions across Europe and the Middle East. “The project demonstrated that farmers are willing to adopt digital tools when these deliver clear and measurable benefits, such as improvements in resource efficiency, climate-risk preparedness and yield stability,” remarks Bochtis.
Benefiting rural communities
With the project’s climate-smart tools, forecasting services and decision-support systems having been integrated into several digital platforms, farmers are already benefiting from its suite of services. “By providing more accurate weather forecasts, climate-risk alerts and crop-specific recommendations, STARGATE is helping farmers reduce losses from extreme weather events, leading to greater yield stability and lower production costs,” notes Bochtis.
STARGATE also strengthens the resilience of farm businesses, allowing them to plan with greater confidence and avoid costly mistakes caused by unpredictable weather. The project enhances the adaptive capacity of rural regions by making climate information accessible to non-experts, contributing to stronger rural communities, improved knowledge-sharing and better long-term environmental stewardship.
“Overall, the project helps farmers make smarter decisions, reduces vulnerability to climate change and promotes a more sustainable and economically viable agricultural sector,” concludes Bochtis.
Although the project is now finished, pilot regions continue to use the STARGATE platform and data for training, advisory support and local climate planning. Some of the project partners have also extended the developed models to new crops and regions, while others have built new services based on the STARGATE framework.