Dr Steve Ostoja at the 2024 US Sustainable Winegrowing Summit.
Topics of discussion covered viticulture, packaging, sales and social responsibility.
‘Climate change is and will continue to modify wine production conditions and requires adaptation from growers,’ said Dr Steve Ostoja, the director of the California Climate Hub.
The forecast for growers includes more heat waves, spring starting earlier, a shift in growing degree days, tree loss due to drought, and natural water reservoirs in decline. These changes will influence pest, disease and pathogen dynamics, with technology developments already playing a key role in management and early detection.
While significant changes must happen from the top down concerning national and international energy resource management, there is little question that agricultural industries – including wine – must look for ways to mitigate their impact on the environment and develop strategies to minimise the changing climate’s impact on their brand’s qualitative and quantitative production.
Dr John Heckman, a wine sustainability expert and consultant, added that the supply chain is a responsibility that producers must take on. ‘For a long time, we thought about (the climate risk world) as the future, but it’s less and less so; it’s happening as we speak; this is scary. We’ve been working on sustainability for a long time; it’s an incredibly hard problem to solve. None of this change is possible individually; this is how we work together, and it is a team spot. There may be no more important team in business than your supply chain.’
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