Category: News

A new Business Brief on opportunities for improved risk management for EU agriculture is ready. Please, read below!

EU farming systems are facing increasing economic, social, environmental and institutional challenges. Finding the opportunities to improve risk management contributes to enhancing the farming systems’ resilience. Based on the participation of a wide variety of stakeholders across European agricultural sectors, four main avenues to improve risk management are proposed: 1) Useful, accessible and well-structured information; 2) Professional, adapted and widespread training and advice and boosted knowledge transfer; 3) Developing and spreading new forms of cooperation among farming system actors; and 4) New/ improved products and services adapted to current and future needs of the farming systems. Not only farmers, farmers’ households and associations but also value chain actors, financial institutions, NGOs and public administration are encouraged to be part of the opportunities to improve risk management towards resilient farming systems.

You can find below the business brief translated in 11 languages: English, Dutch, German, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Bulgarian, French, Norwegian, Swedish and Spanish:

Business Brief-English version

Bussines Brief-Dutch version

Bussiness Brief-German version 

Business Brief-Italian version

Business Brief-Polish version

Business Brief-Romanian version

Business Brief-Bulgarian version

Business Brief-French version

Business Brief-Norwegian version

Business Brief-Swedish version

Business Brief-Spanish version

Have a look at the new deliverable on resilience assessment of current farming systems across the European Union.

Assessing sustainability and resilience of farming systems is a multi-faceted research challenge in terms of the scientific domains and scales of integration (farm, household, farming system level) that need to be covered. Hence, in SURE-Farm, multiple approaches are used to evaluate current sustainability and resilience and its underlying structures and drivers. Results of the different methods were compared and synthesized around the three aspects characterizing the SURE-Farm framework, i.e. (i) it studies resilience at the farming system level, (ii) considers three resilience capacities, and (iii) assesses resilience in the context of the (changing) functions of the system.

Click here to read the full report: D.5.3 Reilience Assessment of current farming systems across the European Union

Authors: Pytrik Reidsma, Alisa Spiegel, Wim Paas, Francesco Accatino, Federico Antonioli, Franziska Appel, Isabel Bardají, Robert Berry, Daniele Bertolozzi, Jo Bijttebier, Jasmine Black, Yannick Buitenhuis, Isabeau Coopmans, Paul Courtney, Peter Feindt, Camelia Gavrilescu, Helena Hansson, Błażej Jendrzejewski , Amr
Khafagy, Vitaliy Krupin, Carl-Johan Lagerkvist, Sara Larson, Eewoud Lievens, Erik Mathijs, Gordana Manevska-Tasevska, Damian Maye, Franziska Ollendorf, Mariya Peneva, Andrea Pettit, Corentin Pinsard, Jens Rommel, Saverio Senni, Simone Severini, Thomas Slijper, Bárbara Soriano, Julie Urquhart, Stela Valchovska, Mauro Vigani, Erwin Wauters, Katarzyna Zawalińska, Miranda Meuwissen

Correponding author: Pytrik Reidsma(pytrik.reidsma@wur.nl

A new Policy Brief on farmer adaptive behaviour and risk management in EU agriculture is ready. Please, read below!

Risk and risk management are essential elements of agriculture and affect the wellbeing of farm households. Farmers react to production, market and institutional risks and challenges by taking measures on or off the farm. Such risk management measures are often costly and have implications for up- and downstream industries as well as the environment. The risk exposure of European farms is increasing. For example, climate change will increase the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events like droughts, heatwaves and heavy rainfalls that potentially have detrimental effects on agricultural production.

Thus, the adaptive capacity and risk management options in European agriculture need to be improved. Policy shall support this process. Policies are needed to support a diversity of risk management solutions and not only focus on a few solutions. Strategies to cope with risk often go beyond the level of the individual farm. Cooperation, learning and sharing of risks play a vital role in European agriculture and shall be strengthened. Thus, coordinated policies targeting beyond the individual farm and considering all the stakeholders involved in the risk management strategies are needed to ensure their effective implementation. Moreover, policies need to facilitate to take full advantage of the rapid technological progress and improved data availability (e.g. based on satellite imagery) to develop a wider set of risk management strategies.

Click here to read more:

2.5 Policy Brief on farmer adaptive behaviour and risk management in EU agriculture

GIF on Risk Management

We are pleased to announce the 5th Consortium meeting of SURE-Farm that will be held the next 24th and 25th September 2019 in Bucharest (Romania).

The SURE-Farm International Scientific Committee and the stakeholders involved in the Co-creation platform will be attending the Consortium meeting. They will reflect on how the results from the 11 case studies come together and if there are enough ground to reach preliminary conclusions and policy recommendations.

Satellite meetings have been organized before the consortium meeting to go in depth into specific topics, such as farmers’ resilience perception, improved policies to enable resilience, and resilience impact assessment.

Thank you the Institute of Agricultural Economics (IEA-AR) team for the warm welcome and excellent organization.

New Policy Brief on Intergenerational Renewal on EU Farming Systems has been issued. Please, read below!

For a resilient farming system, smooth and sufficient intergenerational renewal is crucial, and it has been defined as one of nine goals for the CAP post-2020. Before implementing specific policy measures and instruments, however, policy makers must determine the degree and nature of the generational renewal problem that needs to be addressed. Also, policies need to focus on increasing the attractiveness of farming as an occupation and lifestyle, as many non-entry decisions are made before measures aimed at the young farmer start to play a role. Further policy directions include increasing the mobility of land and labour, supporting the management of extreme calamities as they involve a great risk of exit and non-entry and facilitating the provision of personal and farm-specific advice and coaching. The power and responsibility of national and regional governments to address these issues is often underestimated and overlooked.

Click below to read more

Policy Brief on Intergenerational renewal on EU Farming Systems Download

GIF Download

A new framework to assess Farming System Resilience has just been published.

We develop a framework to assess the resilience of farming systems, and present a methodology to operationalize the framework with a view to Europe’s diverse farming systems. The framework is designed to assess resilience to specific challenges (specified resilience) as well as a farming system’s capacity to deal with the unknown, uncertainty and surprise (general resilience).

The novelty of the framework pertains to the focal scale of analysis, i.e. the farming system level, the consideration of accumulating challenges and various agricultural processes, and the consideration that farming systems provide multiple functions that can change over time.

Furthermore, the distinction between three resilience capacities (robustness, adaptability, transformability) ensures that the framework goes beyond narrow definitions that limit resilience to robustness.

Meuwissen et al. (2019) A framework to assess farming systems resilience. Agricultural Systems 176, 102656.

The SURE-Farm mid-term scientific seminar will take place during the 173rd EAAE Seminar of the European Association of Agricultural Economists in Bucharest.

It aims at presenting the main results to date of the project. Topics covered will include the risk behavior, risk management and resilience, learning capacity, farm demographics, agricultural policies and impact assessment.

The seminar will welcome Miranda Meuwissen (WUR), coordinator of the SURE-Farm project and Ika Darnhofer (BOKU), member of the SURE-Farm International Scientific Committee.

Click here to have access to the agenda: Agenda SURE-Farm mid-term scientific seminar

Learning is considered an important component for resilience building in socio-ecological systems, not least because resilience is about dealing with, adapting to and responding to change. Thus, knowledge constantly needs revision and approaches to management require adapting to changing circumstances. This deliverable examines the role that learning plays across the resilience capacities. Through 11 farming system case studies across Europe, this work aims at identifying farmer attributes that enable or constrain learning, understanding the networks of influencers on farmer decision-making, identifying the external factors that enable or constrain learning and at assessing European farmers’ learning capacity in the context of the resilience capacities of robustness, adaptability and transformability.

Click here to read the full report: D2.3. Report on farmers’ learning capacity and networks of influence in11 European case studies

Authors: Julie URQUHART, Francesco ACCATINO, Franziska APPEL, Federico ANTONOILI, Rob BERRY, Daniele BERTOLOZZI, Jo BIJTTEBIER, Jasmine BLACK, Valentin-Mihai BOHATEREȚ, Ioan-Sebastian BRUMĂ, Isabeau COOPMANS, Paul COURTNEY, Hendrik DASKIEWICZ, Corina DINCULESCU, Codrin DINU-VASILIU, Krisztina-Melinda DOBAY, Camelia GAVRILESCU, Piotr GRADZIUK, Florian HEINRICH, Anca-Marina IZVORANU, Sara JOHANSSON, Konstantin KLEIN, Daniela MATEI, Damian MAYE, Mariya PENEVA, Andrea PETIT, Christine PITSON, Simone SEVERINI, Thomas SLIJPER, Barbara SORIANO, Lucian TANASĂ, Camelia TOMA, Monica-MihaelaTUDOR, Mauro VIGANI, Katarzyna ZAWALINKSKA

Correponding author: Julie URQUHART (jurquhart1@glos.ac.uk)

Farm demographic change at the farming system level is the result of individual farm demographic change processes made by individual farmers. This work invests intergenerational renewal in individual farms through focusing on unravelling complex relations between human behaviour/decisionmaking and observed trends. Indepth interviews performed in all 11 case-studies entailed the identification of drivers that affect the main farm-demographic change processes such as exit, entry, non-exit and non-entry. Then, a cross-case comparison was made to identify common themes affecting or related to farm demographic change.

Click here to read the full report: D3.2 Report on a a qualitative analysis in 11 case-studies for understanding the process of farm demographic change across EU-farming systems and its influencing factors 

The report has been led by OCILVO (www.ilvo.vlaanderen.be)

Authors: Isabeau COOPMANS, Joost DESSEIN, Jo BIJTTEBIER, Federico ANTONIOLI, Franziska APPEL, Rob BERRY, Daniele BERTOLOZZI, Valentin-Mihai BOHATERET, Ioan-Sebastian BRUMA6, Paul COURTNEY, Cecilia CASONATO, Corina DINULESCU, Codrin DINU-VASILIU, Krisztina-Melinda DOBAY, Elodie DOLLEANS, ElisabettaFIORINI, Violeta FLORIAN, Camelia GAVRILESCU, Piotr GRADZIUK, Florian HEINRICH, Anca IZVORANU, Sara JOHANSSON, Konstantin KLEIN, Gordana MANEVSKA-TASEVSKA, Daniela MATEI, Miranda MEUWISSEN, Delphine NEUMEISTER, Giulio PAOLINI, Mariya PENEVA, Andrea PETITT, Elodie PINEAU, Christine PITSON, Simone SEVERINI, Thomas SLIJPER, Barbara SORIANO, Lucian TANASA, Camelia TOMA, Monica TUDOR, Julie URQUHART, Katarzyna ZAWALINSKA and Erwin WAUTERS

Correponding author: Isabeau COOPMANS (isabeau.coopmans@ilvo.vlaanderen.be)

European agriculture comprises many different farming systems (e.g. livestock, arable and mixed, extensive and intensive). Also in terms of economic, environmental and social performance, farming systems differ widely. Evaluating economic, social as well as environmental dimensions of farms and farming systems needs an integrated approach.

This report present the results of a participatory sustainability and resilience assessment of 11 farming systems in the European Union (EU) that aim to get a semi-quantitative overview of the sustainability and resilience of  farming systems.

Click here to read the full report: D5.2 Participatory impact assessment of sustainability and resilience of EU farming systems

You can also find the 11 country reports in this link

The report has been led by Wageningen University and Research (www.wur.nl/)

Authors: Wim PAAS, Francesco ACCATINO, Federico ANTONIOLI, Franziska APPEL, Isabel BARDAJI, Isabeau COOPMANS, Paul COURTNEY, Camelia GAVRILESCU, Florian HEINRICH, Vitaliy KRUPIN, Gordana MANEVSKA-TASEVSKA,Delphine NEUMEISTER, Mariya PENEVA, Jens ROMMEL, Simone SEVERINI, Barbara SORIANO, Monica TUDOR,Julie URQUHART, Erwin WAUTERS, Katarzyna ZAWALINSKA, Miranda MEUWISSEN, Pytrik REIDSMA

Correponding author: Wim Pass (wim.paas@wur.nl)