During the project’s lifetime information on SURE-Fam will be shared in this section. The following public deliverables are foreseen in the project:
Resilience Concept
D1.1 Report on resilience framework for EU agriculture
Farming systems in Europe face a vast range of environmental, economic, social and institutional challenges. Examples include more volatile producer and input prices, higher probability of extreme weather events, increasing dependence on land owners and financial institutions, organizational change within value chains, competing policy objectives and increasing administrative demands, and new societal concerns and changing consumer preferences. In this paper we define resilience as maintaining the essential functions of EU farming systems in the face of increasingly complex and volatile economic, social, environmental and institutional challenges. A farming system is a system hierarchy level above the farm at which properties emerge as a result of the formal and informal interactions and interrelations among farms, available technologies, stakeholders along the value chain, citizens in rural and urban areas, consumers, policy makers, and the environment. Existing resilience frameworks do not sufficiently capture the regional interplay of the multiple processes and stakeholders apparent in farming systems. In order to capture the described developments in EU agriculture, and in order to proactively address those challenges, we propose a framework to analyse the resilience of EU farming systems. The integrated framework can be applied by public and private decision makers to formulate differentiated strategies across EU farming systems depending on context-specific challenges and available resources.
D1.2 Report on scenarios for EU farming
When developing strategies or policies to increase resilience, private and public decision makers need to anticipate to future shocks and stresses affecting the systems they manage. However, they face the difficulty that the future is not fully known. Uncertainty exists with respect to key factors affecting the actions of interest. Scenarios are a useful tool to cope with such future uncertainties and can be used both as a way to explore—not predict—the future through the identification of potential opportunities and threats and as a way to make action more future-proof. The objective of this deliverable is to develop medium- to long-term explorative scenarios describing possible futures for the external environment that EU farming systems face. The external environment will include environmental issues, economic issues and social issues. Consumer trends are typically not or insufficiently included in farming systems related scenarios and will therefore get particular attention. The purpose is to produce scenarios that encompass a wide range of issues characterised in both a quantitative and a qualitative way that can be used to guide further work in SURE-Farm.
D1.3 Report on farm typology and farming systems selection
The farm typology approach uses to respond to the research questions where statistics on average farm characteristics are not representative for the majority of the farms in the study regions. Taking into account the heterogeneity of agriculture within a region is the primary objective of the constructing farm typologies. The selection of factors that define the farm typology varies from study to study, and is governed by the research purpose. The objective of the SURE-Farm farm typology is to classify EU farms in groups that are homogeneous, characteristic and representative regarding their challenges to cope with requirements of resilience of farms and farming systems.
D1.4 Press release on resilience framework for EU agriculture
Resilience of the agricultural sector is an important aim of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Most often, resilience is focused on stimulating robustness, with policy and market instruments aimed at maintaining the stability of the farm business. However, a group of European scientists argues that this is too narrow a way of looking at resilience. They state that while robustness contributes to agricultural development, the current higher risk environment also requires other types of capacity in food and agribusiness: namely adaptability and transformability.
D1.5 Policy brief on resilience framework, scenarios and farm typology
To achieve its objectives in a changing world, the Common Agricultural Policy needs to put the resilience of Europe’s farming systems at its center. The current CAP focuses on making the farming community more robust against shocks in the short run. However, a broader view on resilience is needed to ensure a sustainable agricultural sector in the longer term. This new vision should pay sufficient attention to developing the capacities of both individual farms and farming systems to adapt to changing circumstances and to transform their business models where necessary to maintain the delivery of food, fiber, energy and public goods in the long run.
Risk Management
D2.1 Report on farmers’ perceptions of risk, adaptive capacity and resilience
Multiple economic, ecological, institutional and societal challenges raise concern about the future functionality of agriculture and more specifically of farms in Europe, which leads to an increased need to understand and improve its resilience. We aim to provide a comprehensive overview of farmers’ perception and self-assessment of resilience that would serve as a solid basis for further research on farm resilience. In order to achieve the aim, a farmer survey was designed based on theories of risk communication, decision theory and psychometric models. We conducted the survey in 11 case study regions across the European Union. No previous empirical research on farm resilience included so many diverse case studies.
D2.2 Report on biographical narratives exploring short- and long-term adaptive behavior of EU farmers
Resilience over time is achieved across the increasingly fundamental attributes of robustness, adaptability and transformability, representing system responses to short, medium and long-term external drivers, respectively. Analysis of narratives can be used to enable researchers to gain indepth understanding of the rationale surrounding farmer decision making when faced with drivers of change, and how farmers manage critical decision points in their farming businesses. This report assesses personal histories of family farms, and business histories of corporate farms, to identify phases in the separate production, demographic and policy adaptive cycles as they have impacted on the individuals concerned and their business enterprises. Biographical stories were collected from nine to ten narrators (early-, mid- and late-career),in each of five case studies chosen to represent a range of regions and farming systems in Europe. A single question was used to initiate the narrators’ stories, without qualification beforehand, supported only with expressions of interest and encouragement in the first part of the interview, with subsequent exploratory questions devoted to clarifying the internal structure of the narrative.
D2.3 Report on farmers’ collective learning and self-organization
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.
D2.4 Open-access paper on the use of remote sensing-based approaches for crop and livestock production
Grassland based farming systems are exposed to extreme weather events causing volatile farm incomes. Grazing and lacking yield measurements make it largely impossible to insure grassland production with traditional insurance products. In contrast, index insurance products have the potential to insure grasslands, as their payoff relies on an endogenous index that is highly correlated to, but independent of, the actual grass yield. To support future development of these products, we provide the first systematic overview of 12 index insurances put into practise for grasslands in Europe and North America. Additionally, based on this overview, we present prevailing findings that are important for further research and insurance practitioners. We find that a large diversity of index insurance types is applied in practise, including insurance solutions based on regional yield levels, weather variables or satellite imagery. We reveal separated insurance markets (i.e. country-specific products), which prevent knowledge spillovers and lead to largely isolated product developments. Thus, grassland insurance schemes can be improved by knowledge exchange and combining methods that are applied elsewhere. More specifically, insurances tailored to single farm's risk exposure, the combination of satellite with other geodata (e.g. land use information) or adapting legal specifications that disadvantage some types of insurances can improve an insurance's risk reducing capacity and make grassland based farming systems more resilient to weather extremes. This paper provides an entry point for such process, ensuring the development of efficient measures for farmers to cope with climatic risks.
D2.5 Policy brief on farmer adaptive behavior and risk management in EU agriculture
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.
D2.6 Report on state and outlook for risk management in EU agriculture
The aim of this deliverable is to find the opportunities to improve risk management to enhance the resilience of EU farming systems. Three specific objectives are defined: 1) Providing an outlook of the risk management strategies in the EU farming systems; 2) Defining the ways to improve risk management strategies; and 3) Assessing the ways through which risk management contributes to resilience. The focus of the resilience analysis is on the farming system, i.e. the resilience assessment considers not only farmers but also the other actors in the farming systems such as farmers’ associations and cooperatives, value chain actors, financial institutions and the public administrations. To reach this end, a multi-stakeholder approach is followed considering two different regional scales: i) at local level to involve stakeholders with experience and knowledge at farming system level; for that purpose focus groups are held in 11case study (CS) regions across Europe; and ii) at European level to engage the participation of the stakeholders with experience and knowledge at European level; a dedicated virtual co-creation platform is developed to enable the on-line participation of EU stakeholders across Europe.
D2.7 Business brief on opportunities for improved risk management for EU agriculture
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.
D2.8 Open-access paper on the drivers of expenditure on the Risk Management Toolkit per member state.
Farming faces a wider variety of risks in comparison with other economic sectors, and the systemic nature of agricultural risks induce farmers to seek government intervention. In the EU, public interventions supporting agricultural risk management are contained in the Risk Management Toolkit (RMT) of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which is a voluntary policy adopted by less than half of the EU Member States. We focus in particular on Measure 5 on “Restoring agricultural production potential damaged by natural disasters and catastrophic events and introduction of appropriate prevention actions” and Measure 17 on “Risk management” of the CAP’s Rural Development policy. In order to understand the relatively low adoption of the RMT, this paper investigates the drivers of EU regions’ expenditure towards the RMT by applying and comparing four types of regional-level spatial models, namely a spatial error model, a spatial autoregressive model, a spatial lag of X model and a spatial Durbin error model.
Farm Demographics
D3.1 Report on current farm demographics and trends for selected regions
Farm demographics concerns dynamics within the farmers’ population and the provision of labour to farming systems, capturing both labour directly employed by the farmers’ population and hired labour force. This work uses both quantitative and qualitative data to provide an overview of trends in demographic processes of European farming systems over the last decades. The ultimate goal of this report is to identify and evaluate measures which improve the resilience of farm demographics and facilitate entry into the sector, for both farms and labour.
D3.2 Report on generational renewal and on occupational choice, cross-sector mobility and spatial migration
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.
D3.3 Policy brief on farm demographics and impacts on farm structure
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.
D3.4 Open-access paper on the formulation and adaptation of AB models to simulate generational renewal
This paper presents a tool to analyze the linkages between farm generational renewal and structural change of European farming regions, allowing researchers to assess the farm system’s resilience. There is a strong focus on farm generational renewal both within academia and policy. However, the focus often lies on the family. This results in a knowledge gap about generational renewal of the increasing number of farms which rely on hired labour and farm almost half of European agricultural land. To begin to fill the gap, the Agricultural Policy Simulator (AgriPoliS), an agent-based model used to analyze structural change of farm regions, has been selected to extend to simulate generational renewal. The model is calibrated to the Altmark, a heterogenous farming region in Germany with both family and corporate farms. To support the model’s extension and adaptation, a focus group work shop was held in the Altmark on farm generational renewal. The extension is used to simulate three scenarios, which reveal the robust and adaptive resilience capacities of the Altmark.
D3.5 Report on future farm demographics and structural change in selected regions of the EU
This report focuses on the effects farm demographics, specifically farm succession, have on farm structural change, specifically the presence of a successor. It will do so using a mixed methods approach to first understand the demographic change in two European farming regions, the Altmark (Germany) and Flanders (Belgium) with focus groups. Based on information from the focus groups and empirical data, we simulate two scenarios in each region using the agent-based model the Agricultural Policy Simulator (AgriPoliS). The scenarios use the demographics extension, which allows the calibration of the model region’s farmer age and succession demographics, detailed in SURE-Farm Deliverable 3.4. One scenario is calibrated to empirical data with an EU-based estimation of successor likelihood, and the other which simulates 100% successor likelihood. The simulations are then analyzed with various farm structure indicators to see what effect farm demographics have on farm structures.
D3.6 Policy brief on future developments in farm demographics and structural change in selected regions of the EU
Farm demographics has been recognized as an important driver of structural change in European agriculture. Focus groups and computer simulations on farm demographic change were used to better understand its role for the case study regions of the Altmark in the eastern part of Germany and Flanders in the northern part of Belgium. According to these analyses, many potential agricultural entrants are deterred by what they view as a poor quality of life that farming offers. This applies to farm successors as well as hired workers. For higher attractiveness of agriculture, policy objectives should address the social image of farming as well as revitalize rural areas. Increasingly critical is the demand for skilled hired labour. However, policies dealing with farm demographic change ignore these needs and focus almost exclusively on farm succession. Particularly, the direct payment system, including additional support for small farms and young farmers, must be re-evaluated for its effectiveness. The analyses provide evidence that this system constrains European agricultural development more than assists it; ultimately preventing farms from adapting and transforming.
D3.7 Business brief on farming opportunities for entrants and young farmers
One important longer-term building-block of a farming system’s resilience is generational renewal. Vice versa, farming systems are only attractive for the younger generation to enter if they offer long-term prospects. Within the EU, regional farming systems differ enormously with regard to their organisational and demographic characteristics, their production systems, and their local natural, institutional, and infrastructural conditions. Accordingly, generational renewal is multifaceted and related to many different issues, such as whether and how farms should organise farm succession, how farms can ensure the availability of a sufficient labour force, how they can adapt to and prepare for generational and demographic changes, and how the younger generation can benefit from the training and employment opportunities in the farming sector. Fuelled by key findings of the SURE-Farm Project, the aim of this business brief is to raise awareness among farmers and stakeholders of opportunities and challenges related to the various aspects of generational renewal.
D3.8 - Impact of the Young Farmers payment on structural change
The European Union (EU) agricultural sector has experienced significant structural changes over the last decades, mostly consisting of a decline in the number of farms, farm size growth, and a conversion towards intensive systems. This process led to a concentration of the EU agricultural sector towards fewer, bigger, and more specialised farms, seeking higher profits through economies of scale. There are multiple drivers of structural change, and they vary between EU farming systems according to their characteristics. The most common drivers of structural change are an ageing farming population, the past farming structure, natural and ecological conditions, technological innovation, and off-farm employment opportunities. Among the different policy instruments of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the most significant measure is the Young Farmer payment (YFP) included in the Pillar I of the CAP since the 2013 Reform. This deliverable ims to assess the impact of the YFP on the structural change of two EU regions farming systems, namely the Altmark region in Germany and the Flanders region in Belgium. The paper adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative methods.
D3.9 Policy brief on policy options for resilient farm demographics and farm structural
European agriculture as well as the wider economy face substantial demographic changes in the upcoming decades. The baby boomer generation will retire within the next 10 to 15 years and the cohorts of the young generations which will enter the labour market in the next decades are much smaller in size. Accordingly, the farming sector will have to compete with other sectors and urban areas which offer attractive career prospects. The SURE-Farm project seeks to better understand the sustainability and resilience of European farming systems, including the challenges related to farm demographics and what this means for structural change. This policy brief aims to tie the findings of SURE-Farm on farm demographics with policy options which may enable resilient farm structures.
Policy
D4.1 Assessment tool (ResAT) to assess the capacity of policies to enhance the resilience of EU farming systems (Protocol).
The Resilience Assessment Tool (ResAT) assesses whether policy goals and instruments encourage, enable, tolerate or constrain farmers’ resilience enhancing strategies and resources. In the first step, the ResAT will be used to analyse and evaluate whether and how the CAP, its implementation in the eleven member states of our case studies, and additional relevant national policies address and support the resilience of farming systems.
D4.2 Report with the results of the assessment of strengths and weaknesses of the CAP
The Resilience Assessment Tool (ResAT) builds on broad academic literature that has identified characteristics of resilience-enhancing policies. However, it adds a distinction between policy characteristics that enhance either robustness, adaptability or transformability. This report presents the findings from an application of the Resilience Assessment Tool in eleven case studies across Europe to assess whether and how the current configuration of EU and national policies supports or constrains the capacity of regional farming systems to cope with the range of novel challenges. Understanding the CAP’s effects on the resilience of regional farming systems requires an analysis of the interactions between the CAP and various other policies, which occur not only within the sector, but also across sectors and jurisdictional levels.
D4.3 Five case study reports with the results of the assessments in the five regional case study areas
The influence of the policy framework on the resilience of European farming systems cannot be understood without analysing the interplay between the CAP and various other policies across sectors and jurisdictional levels from the perspective of regional farming systems. This report shows a bottom-up evaluation of policy framework for farming systems in five regions: dairy farming in Flanders (Belgium), extensive sheep farming in Hoya de Huesca, Aragon (Spain), arable farming in De Veenkoloniën (The Netherlands), large-scale corporate farms in East England (UK), and family fruit and vegetable farms in the Mazovian and Podlasie regions (Poland). The cases have been selected with a view to the variety of EU farming systems and associated challenges, as well as surrounding policy configurations.
D4.4 Open-access paper with the overall assessment of the extent to which policies enable the resilience of the diverse farming systems
How can public policies enable the resilience of critical systems? An assessment of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy in eleven case studies. Peter H. FEINDT, – Katrien TERMEER, Jeroen CANDEL, Yannick BUITENHUIS, Alfons BALMANN3, Isabel BARDAJI, François LÉGER5, Eewoud LIEVENS, Lucian LUCA, Gordana MANEVSKA-TASEVSKA, Anna MARTIKAINEN, Erik MATHIJS, Peter MIDMORE, Mariya PENEVA, Simone SEVERINI, Bárbara SORIANO, Alessandro SORRENTINO, Dan-Marius VOICILAS, Katarzyna ZAWALIŃSKA. Under Review
D4.5 Policy recommendations for strengthening the Common Agricultural Policy’s resilience impacts
In its Communication on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) after 2020, the European Commission (2017) declared their ambition to foster a ‘resilient agricultural sector’. The study presented in this report identifies various promising options for the CAP, including national implementations, to maximise its contribution to greater resilience of EU farming systems. These options serve as input for ongoing political debates on the reform of the CAP post-2020, the development of the proposed National Strategic Plans that spell out national priorities and implementation choices, as well as the European Commission’s “From Farm to Fork Strategy”, which aims to foster a circular food system, as part of the European Green Deal. For the UK case study (see below), we reflect on promising courses of action for post-Brexit agricultural policy.
D4.6 Policy brief with a critical analysis of how current policies constrain/enable resilient EU agriculture
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union is essential to enhance the resilience of Europe’s farming systems along three capacities: robustness, adaptability and transformability. The SURE-Farm project conducted the first systematic assessment how the CAP performs in this regard. The findings show that hitherto the CAP has been overly focused on supporting the robustness of an increasingly fragile status quo, with uneven effects, while neglecting adaptability and even constraining transformability. The future CAP needs to allow for a better balance with policy mixes that are tailored to regional needs, based on a shared long-term vision. This implies replacing direct payments with measures that specifically address resilience needs, e.g. points-based eco-schemes, agro-environmental programs, coordinated adaptation to shifting markets, ample support for cross-sectoral cooperation, innovation and advice to integrate production and provision of public goods, and participatory and integrative foresight to develop transformation pathways.
Integrated assessment
D5.1 Report on IA tool to assess the resilience of farming systems and their delivery of private and public goods (Protocol).
An Integrated Assessment tool (IA) will be developed to operationalise the resilience framework. The IA tool will include both static and dynamic, and quantitative and qualitative models. The objective of this report is to describe tools proposed within SURE-Farm to assess resilience and to articulate the rationale for using them.
D5.2 Report on participatory impact assessments in case study regions
This report presents the results of a participatory sustainability and resilience assessment of 11 farming systems in the European Union (EU). The assessments focused on 1) ranking the importance of functions and selecting representative indicators for these functions, 2) scoring the current performance of the representative indicators, 3) sketching dynamics of main representative indicators of functions, 4) linking these dynamics to challenges and resilience enhancing strategies, 5) assessing level of implementation of identified strategies and their potential contribution to the robustness, adaptability and transformability of the farming system, and 6) assessing level of presence of resilience enhancing system characteristics (resilience attributes) and their potential contribution to the robustness, adaptability and transformability of the farming system.
D5.3 Report on resilience assessment of current farming systems across the EU
For improving sustainability and resilience of EU farming system, the current state needs to be assessed, before being able to move on to future scenarios. 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. To maintain consistency across the different approaches, all approaches are connected to a resilience framework which was developed for the unique purposes of SURE-Farm. Results of the different methods were compared and synthesized per step of the resilience framework. Synthesized results were used to determine the position of the farming system in the adaptive cycle, i.e. in the exploitation, conservation, release, or reorganization phase. Results were 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.
D5.4 Open-access paper on resilience assessment of current farming systems across the EU
Three papers have recently been submitted, based on D5.2 ‘Report on participatory impact assessments in case study regions’. The first paper is led by Pytrik Reidsma and synthesizes results from a participatory assessment from all 11 case studies. The second paper is led by Wim Paas and presents the framework for participatory assessment of sustainability and resilience in more detail, and presents applications for three specialized systems. The third paper is led by Elena Nera, and has already been published in ‘Sustainability’ in January 2020. It focuses on the application of the framework in one specific case study, i.e. hazelnut production in central Italy. It therefore provides detailed insights in the sustainability and resilience of one specific farming system.
D5.5 Report on impacts of future scenarios on the resilience of EU farming systems
For improving the sustainability and resilience of EU farming systems, it is important to assess their likely responses to future challenges under future scenarios. We evaluated future resilience in 11 case studies across the EU, using a soft coupling of different qualitative and quantitative approaches. The qualitative approach was FoPIA-SUREFarm 2, a participatory approach in which stakeholders identified critical thresholds for current systems, evaluated expected system performance when these thresholds would be exceeded, envisaged alternative future states of the systems (and their impact on indicators and resilience attributes), as well as strategies to get there. Quantitative approaches included models simulating the behavior of the systems under some specific challenges and scenarios. The models differed in assumptions and aspects of the farming systems described: Ecosystem Service modelling focused on the biophysical level (considering land cover and nitrogen fluxes), AgriPoliS considered, with an agent-based approach, socio-economic processes and interactions within the farming system, and System Dynamics, taking a holistic approach, explored some of the feedback loops mechanisms influencing the systems resilience from both a qualitative and quantitative approach. The report showed complementarity between different methods and, above all, between quantitative and qualitative approaches. Qualitative approaches are needed for interaction with stakeholders, understand perceptions of stakeholders, consider available knowledge on all aspects of the farming system, including social dimensions, and perform a good basis for developing and parameterizing quantitative models. Quantitative methods allow quantifying the consequences of mental models, operationalizing the impact of stresses and strategies to tackle them and help to unveil unintended consequences, but are limited in their reach. Both are needed to assess resilience of farming systems and suggest strategies for improvement and to help stakeholders to wider their views regarding potential challenges and ways to tackle them
D5.6 Report on impacts of improved strategies and policy options on the resilience of farming systems across the EU
In this study, we used insights from a participatory assessment (FoPIA‐SURE‐Farm 1 and 2) executed in in 11 EU farming systems to identify strategies that enhance sustainability and resilience of these farming systems. This participatory assessment was complemented by an expert assessment and system dynamics (SD) modelling, to improve understanding of dynamic processes influencing sustainability and resilience of farming systems, and the conditions that enable such processes. The main aim was to identify past and optional future strategies in farming systems across the EU, to assess how these contribute to the delivery of private and public goods and resilience‐enhancing attributes, and to identify additional interventions needed by farming system actors and the enabling environment.
D5.7 Policy brief on the resilience of farming systems in the EU under current conditions and future scenarios
The resilience of EU farming systems is perceived to be low to moderate. Many farming systems are perceived to be close to critical thresholds, with low economic viability leading to farmer exits, making it hard to maintain the social fabric, natural resources and biodiversity. There are limits to success with regard to increasing farm size and intensity, the main adaptation strategies in the past. In the future, a more balanced attention is needed for economic, social and environmental dimensions, and for an enabling environment. All involved actors inside and outside the farming system need to collaborate in order to make a change towards business models that tackle long-term challenges.
D5.8 Open-access paper on comparative analysis of the resilience of EU farming systems
Open-access paper on comparative analysis of the resilience of farming systems across the EU and their delivery of private and public goods, and the impacts of future scenarios, improved strategies and policy options. Pytrik Reidsma, Wim Paas, Francesco Accatino, Franziska Appel, Jasmine Black, Jo Bijttebier, Camelia Gavrilescu, Birgit Kopainsky, Vitaliy Krupin, Gordana Manevska Tasevska, Miranda Meuwissen, Franziska Ollendorf, Mariya Peneva, Saverio Senni, Simone Severini, Bárbara Soriano, Julie Urquhart, Mauro Vigani, Katarzyna Zawalinska, Cinzia Zinnanti, Hugo Herrera. Under review.
Enabling Environment
D6.1 Case-reporting protocol
One of the specific objectives of SURE-Farm is to identify integrated sets of conditions that effectively provide an enabling environment for resilient farming systems in Europe. It requires to integrate case studies findings on resilience enabling conditions and their impact on the attractiveness of the farming sector and its capacity to enhance adaptive behavior and learning. By linking these outcome values to the combinations of conditions, it is possible to identify which combinations of conditions are likely to improve resilience. The purpose of this protocol is to make sure that conditions will be characterized comprehensively and systematically across the various case studies.
D6.2 Report on combinations of conditions for successful and unsuccessful fostering of resilience in agricultural sectors
Farming systems (FS) operate in biophysical, political, social, economic and cultural environments which are often far from stable. Frequently or unfavourably changing conditions can affect FS performance, i.e., the delivery of FS functions (such as food production or ecosystem services). The aim of this report is to identify principles for an enabling environment to foster (rather than hinder) resilient farming systems in Europe. Fostering FS resilience is done through (re)designing institutions and building and mobilising resources in order to enhance resilience enabling attributes of FS (and remove resilience constraining attributes). These institutions can be both part of the FS and part of an enabling environment, consisting of private actors (such as food processors, retailers, banks, etc.) and public actors (government agencies). Six general principles underpinning patterns that enable FS resilience have been formulated. An important challenge is that FS and enabling environments should always find a good balance between addressing challenges in the short run and dealing with challenges in the long run.
D6.3 Policy brief guiding principles for an enabling environment fostering resilience
An institutional and socio-economic environment that fosters resilience is crucial for the future of EU farming systems. SURE-Farm has integrated much of its previous work into a set of 6 key principles for a resilience enabling environment. These are (1) to use resources to help the FS to deal with a shock only to buy time while working on structural solutions; (2) to devote enough resources to building anticipating and responsive capacities when shocks happen; (3) to detect long term trends and their potential impact on the FS; (4) to foster a diversity of potential options; (5) to develop a sufficient degree of ambidexterity; and (6) to do in-depth analysis of root causes of challenges and the FS’s vulnerability to them. Implementing these principles into concrete actions and strategies requires social learning and concerted efforts by all actors involved.
D6.4 Implementation roadmaps for the implementation of the enabling environment principles
Farming systems (FS) operate in biophysical, political, social, economic, and cultural environments which are often far from stable. Frequently or unfavorably changing conditions can affect FS performance, i.e., the delivery of FS functions. We defined 6 principles for an enabling environment to foster resilience of farming systems in Europe. This principles are translated into 10 case study specific roadmaps that contain recommendations for both publica and private actors and institutions in the farming systema and the enabling environment on how to support farming system resilience.
D6.5 Report on roadmap implementation and protocol for implementation monitoring
In SURE-Farm, a systems thinking analysis was performed in the systemic behaviour that results from actors’ decision on how to use their resources. This has led to the development of 6 key principles for enabling resilience, which should be followed in order to stimulate resilient farming systems. These were presented in Mathijs et al. (2021). In SURE-Farm’s case studies, a policy dialogue was initiated in the form of a stakeholder workshop, in order to translate the principles into concrete roadmaps, i.e. sets of actions and strategies to improve the resilience of farming systems. Ideally, this policy dialogue (or roundtable or task force) would be continued after SURE-Farm. In this deliverable, we briefly explain how systems thinking in general and archetype in particular can be used to further continue such policy dialogue (or to implement such policy dialogue beyond SURE-Farm’s 11 case studies).
D6.6 Press release on roadmaps for enabling environment
Challenges that threaten the performance of farming systems have put resilience high on the agenda. Actions and strategies to stimulate the resilience of farming systems should follow six key principles that describe how actors in the farming system and its environment (governments, value chain businesses, banks, advisors and others) should act. How these principles translate into concrete recommendations is specific to regions and sectors. A co-creation process such as a policy dialogue should be created to develop roadmaps towards supporting resilience.
Dissemination, Exploitation and Communication
D7.1 Web-page and project portal, social media accounts and cocreation platform
Please, find below the diverse communication channels developed in SURE-Farm: 1.-The website: https://www.surefarmproject.eu/ 2.-The intranet: https://cloud9.cesvima.upm.es/index.php/login 3.-Twitter account: https://twitter.com/surefarmproject 4.-Linkedin […]
D7.2 Infographics delivered throughout the project
You can find all the infographics, GIFs, pictures and videos developed throughout the project on the Digital Materials tab, following […]
D7.3 Design of the plan for dissemination, exploitation and communication activities.
The SURE-Farm plan for dissemination, exploitation and communication activities is a living document that reports the progresses and impacts of […]
D7.4 Scientific seminars
Two seminars and one webinar have been held to present the project reports and recommendations to enhance resilience of European […]
D7.6 A project’s edited book
The title of the book is "Resilient and sustainable EU-farming systems; exploring diversity and pathways". The book is being edited […]