Brandenburg is the fifth largest Ge

Brandenburg is the fifth largest German state, and it has a land surface area of 29,640 km2, of which 45% is agricultural land, most of which (75%) is arable land. Brandenburg surrounds the German capital Berlin and comprises 14 districts. The state’s mineral soils are developed on glaciofluvial, periglacial and glacial deposits, aeolian deposits and river sand. Almost two-thirds of the state’s territory, mainly with sandy and sandy loamy soil, has a water holding capacity lower than 140 mm (Table 1). Peat soils are excluded from crop cultivation by decree.
Agricultural practice is dominated by large farm enterprises with an average size of 238 ha, which is four times the German average. Mechanization is high, and the labor force is only
1.7 persons per 100 ha on average. Large-scale operations, hired labor and a high mechanization rate result in highly competitive farm enterprises that are oriented towards profit maximization. A study on the regional impacts for Brandenburg of changes to the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) indicated that the dependency of farm enterprises on world market prices is high compared to the European average (Sieber et al., 2013).

The average rainfall in Brandenburg is 554 mm year1 (1981–2010), which is low compared to the German average of 800 mm year1 (German Weather Service, 2013). This limits the yield for rain-fed agriculture. Irrigation is currently used on only 2% of the cropland area (Statistical Office Brandenburg, 2012). Due to increasing world market prices for agricultural commodities and concerns about increasing water stress related to climate change, we expect that irrigation will become more important in the near future. However, there are concerns over dwindling groundwater resources related to this development. We analyzed the scenario effects for the 14 districts of Brandenburg. Table 2 lists the names, cropland areas and name codes of districts.