Management of agricultural genetic resources : an institutional analysis of trends in the Netherlands

This report analyses the developments in the institutional environment of the statutory research tasks for conservation and use of agricultural genetic resources (WOT-GB ) in the Netherlands. Attention focuses on the period since 2002, when the Netherlands Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Food Quality (LNV) adopted its policy document, Sources of Existence, and likely future developments are described. A number of key stakeholders in the sector were interviewed in order to identify the relevant developments and their implications for the agreement on statutory research tasks between LNV and the Centre for Genetic Resources, the Netherlands (CGN) of Wageningen University and Research Centre

CROSS-COMPLIANCE Facilitating the CAP reform: Compliance and competitiveness of European agriculture Specific Targeted Research or Innovation Project (STREP) Integrating and Strengthening the European Research Area : Deliverable 13 : Product-based assessments to link compliance to standards at farm level to competitiveness

This report summarizes the main results from the Cross-Compliance project The core aim of this EU funded research project is to analyse the external competitiveness impact arising from an improvement in the level of compliance with mandatory standard

Liberalisering verwerking categorie 1- en categorie 2-slachtbijproducten : een marktanalyse

Aanleiding voor dit onderzoek vormen de beleidsbeslissingen om het destructiebestel te herzien, zoals ze in de memorie van toelichting bij de Wet Dieren verwoord worden uitgelegd. Hier staat dat alleen het op-halen en verwerken van kadavers gereguleerd zal blijven1 en de destructiemarkt voor ander categorie 1- en categorie 2-materiaal zal worden geliberaliseerd. De onderzoeksvragen zijn: 1. Hoeveel nieuwe verwerkers van categorie 1- en categorie 2-slachtbijproducten zullen toetreden? 2. Hoeveel materiaal zullen ze verwerken? Waar betrekken zij hun materiaal vandaan en tegen welke prijzen? De markt van dierlijke vetten en melen is klein maar ondoorzichtig. Opbrengstprijzen van verwerkte cat. 1- en cat. 2-slachtbijproducten zijn niet algemeen bekend, omdat ze onderling worden overeengekomen. Dat geldt ook voor niet-gereguleerde tarieven voor verwerking. De benadering in deze rapportage is daardoor meer kwalitatief gebleven en er zijn geen rentabiliteitsberekeningen uitgevoerd

Reducing postharves food losses in developing economies by using a Network of Excellence as an intervention tool

Value chains for perishable products, including fruits and vegetables, require an integrated approach to cope with the challenges in producing sufficient food products in a resource-efficient manner. Developing economies are increasingly investing in their potential of agricultural production; however the absence of a sufficient and functioning infrastructure in the postharvest chain results in large shares of harvested product being lost before reaching the consumer market. This study provides clear analysis of the causes of these postharvest losses and suggests the development of effective interventions that form the nucleus of the network of excellence in support of chain actors to improve performance, increase efficiency and provide good quality food products in local and global markets

Overwegingen bij alternatieve kadaverlogistiek in Nederland; Consequenties van het verruimen van de bewaarperiode van kadavers

Signalen uit de veehouderij geven aan dat het voor sommige veehouders aantrekkelijk zou kunnen zijn om de ophaalfrequentie van kadavers te verminderen. Het ministerie van EZ heeft het LEI daarom gevraagd om een oriëntatie van voor- en nadelen van langer koelen en invriezen van kadavers en kadavermateriaal en de consequenties daarvan te bestuderen ten aanzien van de risico's voor dier- en volksgezondheid, handhaafbaarheid, transportbewegingen, verbruik koelingsenergie, verwerkingsmogelijkheden van gekoeld en ingevroren materiaal. Doel van het onderzoek is het in kaart brengen van consequenties van het verruimen van de bewaarperiode van kadavers en kadavermateriaal. EZ heeft behoefte om de voordelen te concretiseren en af te wegen tegen de nadelen, ten behoeve van een eventuele toekomstige beleidskeuze. Het ministerie wil er zeker van zijn dat een nieuwe systematiek geen extra risico's met zich meebrengt voor dier- en volksgezondheid

Investments in energy-saving systems in Dutch horticultural farms

In the Netherlands the greenhouse sector is a major user of energy. It accounts for 7% of the total amount of energy used in the Netherlands and for 79% of the total amount of energy used in agriculture. In order to sustain this sector on the long term, it is important that its use of energy is lowered. One way of reducing energy use for horticultural producers is investing in energy¿saving systems. The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the investment behavior of farm operators. A two-stage econometric model has been applied to analyze the factors influencing the decision of farmers to invest and the level of investment

Model integration. Integrated socio-economic model on food waste

The model architecture described in this deliverable provides the framework through which data and simulations from the data on food waste at a consumer level and at a retail level can be integrated into simulation models. This report highlights the technical approaches followed to achieve model integration. This report highlights the technical approaches followed to achieve model integration. An integrated whole-of-system modelling approach will be developed as a part of the REFRESH project to allow the development of a decision-relevant, and dynamic policy support tool, by which a road map to the reduction of European food waste by 50% by 2030 can be developed. The vital first step (highlighted in this report) is to develop the structures to allow model integration between different model types: Agent-Based Models and Bayesian Networks. These structures were developed and tested to ensure that the model types can be integrated. The architecture described in this deliverable provides the framework through which data and simulations from the data on food waste at a consumer level and at a retail level can be integrated into simulation models. Since a sizable share of the food waste is generated either at the consumer level or at the interaction between consumers and retailers, we address the modelling effort with two integrated ABM-BN models. The first model reproduces the dynamic evolution of food waste choices of consumers as consequence of social interactions. The second focuses instead on the conditions for the successful diffusion and adoption of innovations to reduce food waste at the retailer level. The systemic modelling approach proposed will allow the development of selected simulation scenarios at the consumer and retail level, facilitating decision making in the face of uncertainty. These integrated setups are first iterations of working integrated models, aimed at validating technically the setups as well as the integration process itself. As they are, there are certainly factors that are likely to be important in determining food waste, which are not yet included in the models. However, the latter are flexible and can accommodate further details, and variables. Their construction is purposefully flexible in terms of components of decisions. The integration with Bayesian Networks ensure that Agent-Based models will learn from data originated from the other refresh WPs and will evolve, allowing the introduction of new variables and factors that will lead to the improvement of the different simulation scenarios. The REFRESH project implements a behavioural economics approach in order to identify and measure the most important socio-economic conditions and potential policy interventions driving businesses’ and consumers’ choices in the generation of food waste. More specifically, this work aims to provide new information on consumer and business behaviour by measuring the effects of major tangible factors of food waste, by identifying hidden and emerging profiles of consumer’ and business’ behaviours affecting food waste, and by allowing the detection of intangible food waste drivers. Such an objective is achieved through the development and the testing of Agent-Based Models (ABMs) and Bayesian networks (BNs)

Testing a performance measurement framework for agri-food supply chains

Measurement of entire supply chain performance is an important issue, because it allows for `tracking and tracing¿ of efficacy and efficiency failures and leads to more informed decisionmaking with regards to chain organization. The ultimate aim of implementing a performance measurement system is to improve the performance of the organization. If supply chains can get their performance measurement right, the data they generate will tell them where they are, how they are doing, and where they are going. The choice of appropriate supply chain performance indicators is rather complicated due to presence of multiple inputs and multiple outputs in the system. This issue becomes even more problematic in the field of food and agribusiness due to specific characteristics of agri-food supply chains. These difficulties require a shift in the focus of performance evaluation and benchmarking from characterising performance in terms of single measures to evaluating performance in a multidimensional systems perspective. Efforts as well as progress have been made in this area but supply chain performance measurement received little attention in the field of food and agribusiness. This paper presents a conceptual framework for selection performance measurement indicators for agri-food supply chain. Four main categories of performance measures are identified as necessary components in agri-food supply chain performance measurement system. Each category contains set of performance indicators. Case study research has been designed in Dutch tomato supply chain to test the proposed conceptual framewor