Decision support for information systems management : applying analytic hierarchy process

Decision-making in the field of information systems has become more complex due to a larger number of alternatives, multiple and sometimes conflicting goals, and an increasingly turbulent environment. In this paper we explore the appropriateness of Analytic Hierarchy Process to support I/S decision making. AHP can be applied if the decision problem includes multiple objectives, conflicting criteria, incommensurable units, and aims at selecting an alternative from a known set of alternatives. An AHP analysis is described by using the project selection decision as an example. The strengths and weaknesses of AHP are investigated based on a set of eight criteria for evaluating I/S decision support methods. This evaluation shows that AHP scores well on most criteria. Given this promising performance, other possible applications of AHP within the I/S function are listed.

Collecting sustainability data in different organisational settings of the European Farm Accountancy Data Network

The European Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) collects detailed financial economic information on a sample of farms in Europe. These data are used intensively for the evaluation of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy. Owing to changes in policies, there is a need for a broader set of farm level data, especially on the sustainability performance of farms. This paper describes the different types of FADN systems in Europe and evaluates how these types affect the feasibility of collecting sustainability data. In addition to a theoretical evaluation, the practical experiences of collecting sustainability data on more than 1,000 farms in Europe are described. The paper concludes with a discussion on the advantages and challenges of extending the scope of FADN data collection with sustainability data

Ex-ante evaluation of tightening environmental policy: the case of mineral use in Dutch agriculture

Non-point source pollution is notoriously difficult to asses. A relevant example is mineral emissions in the Netherlands. Since the mid 1980s the Dutch government has sought to reduce emissions through a wide variety of measures, the effect of which in turn is monitored using modeling techniques. This paper presents the current generation of mineral emission models from agriculture based on microsimulation of farms in combination with a spatial equilibrium model for the dispersion of manure from excess regions with high livestock intensities within the country to areas with low livestock intensities. The micro-simulation approach retains the richness in the heterogeneity of farm household decision making that are the core cause of the difficulty of assessing non-point source pollution, while using the best available data to track corresponding pollution. Using scenario analysis we are able to assess the possible effects of further tightening of agro-environmental policy.micro-simulation, spatial-equilibrium model, non-point source pollution, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Design of a System for Information Transfer to Reduce Administrative Burdens in the Agrifood Sector

Agricultural policies are widening the scope to contribute to environmental objectives, such as the Green Deal, Paris Climate Agreement and sustainable development goals. This leads to new monitoring and data needs. To fulfil these data needs, it is crucial to explore the opportunities and limitations of new technologies. This paper analyses the information flows within the agricultural sector and its potential to contribute to future information needs.Farmers act within a network of commercial and governmental organisations. The information exchange with these organisations could increasingly occur through digital means, but in reality, there is still a lot of data transfer on paper or in PDF format. This implies information loss. Digital information flows provide a wealth of information for policy evaluation and monitoring and have the potential to reduce transaction costs. Combining data from different sources (open data like earth observation data, data from on-farm sensor networks, accountancy data like invoices and data from food chain platforms) concerning a single farm is an even bigger challenge than the transfer from paper to digital. Based on these observations a list of requirements for a future solution for information transfer is defined.Based on these requirements, this paper presents the design of a System for Information Transfer to Reduce Administrative burdens (SITRA) to combine data from different sources and give farmers control who can access these data. SITRA will address farmers’ needs to reduce the growing administrative burden placed on them by governments and the food chain sustainability and food safety schemes, especially if data would be stored in a digital farm locker and a farmer could voluntary give his consent through an authorisation mechanism to share specific data with his business partners, paying agency, statistical organisation and Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN, an EU monitoring system for the Common Agricultural Policy). A platform that provides such data lockers could also provide benchmark facilities and a tool for common (open source) maintenance of coding systems.The paper proposes some follow-up activities to test this design. As a pilot, organic farmers that participate in the Dutch Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) will be recruited to co-develop and test the design principles of the system. Given trust issues around data management, the design of the governance and business model of the system are key issues in the follow-up. This group is chosen as organic certification and FADN are the most data-intensive monitoring and evaluation tools in the CAP. The Farm to Fork communication proposes to enlarge the organic sector to 25% of the agricultural area. A new organic control regulation, based on a risk assessment approach is about to be implemented. The Farm to Fork communication also proposes to link the FADN much more with the Farm Advisory System and to extend it to a Farm Sustainability Data Network

FLINT – Farm-level Indicators for New Topics in policy evaluation: an introduction

Societal expectations about agricultural production are changing. There are increased demands on issues such as food safety, animal welfare and the impact of agriculture on the environment (land, water and air). These changes have been refl ected in the European Union’s (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), but information on these issues is lacking and this complicates the required evaluation of policies. The EU Framework 7 project FLINT tries to close this gap by analysing the feasibility of collecting data on these new topics. FLINT has established a data infrastructure with up-to-date farm-level indicators for themonitoring and evaluation of the CAP. The project created a pilot network of more than 1,000 farms to collect a set of sustainability indicators at farm level. The pilot represents farm diversity at EU level, including the different administrative environments in the Member States. This paper sets out the context and the main contributions of the project

Impact of off-farm income and paid taxes on the composition and volatility of incomes and wealth of dairy farmers in the Netherlands

This paper analyses the composition and volatility of the total income and wealth of dairy farmers and the importance and volatility of the different components contributing to their total income and wealth based on Dutch FADN data. The results confirm some existing findings on the stabilising impact of CAP subsidies and off-farm income on farmers’ total income. The paper extends the existing analyses by exploring the impact of taxes on income volatility and the important role of savings in stabilising consumption of farm households. In this paper we show that a broader perspective (including off-farm income and wealth) provides a more realistic picture of the income and wealth effects as experienced by farmers.</p

Adoption of risk management strategies in European agriculture

Given the increased attention to risk management in the European Union’s (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), it is important to monitor and evaluate the rates of adoption by farmers and their determinants over time. Current European Agricultural statistics (Farm Accountancy Data Network) capture few indicators that assess such strategies, but complementing data collected during the EU Framework 7 project FLINT have allowed the adoption of risk management strategies and the determinants of farmers’ preference for complementary or substitute instruments to be assessed. Adoption rates of risk managementinstruments such as insurance contracts, price contracts, off-farm income, other types risk of reduction measures and other gainful activities vary signifi cantly across EU Member States and farming types. Econometric analysis indicates that larger farms more often adopt crop insurance, occupational accident insurance, price contracts and diversifi cation but are less likely to adopt credit avoidance and off-farm employment (at a signifi cance level of 1 per cent). For policy analyses these indicators are a step forward for the determination of the net impacts and establishment of counterfactuals in the long term (i.e. time seriesencompassing also adverse years) for measuring the impact of the CAP at farm level

Informatienet 2003 in zicht: Totstandkoming en kwaliteit van de steekproef land- en tuinbouwbedrijven van het Bedrijven- Informatienet

The EU Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) requires the Netherlands to yearly sent bookkeeping data of 1,500 farms to Brussels. This task is carried out by LEI and CEI. The data send to Brussels mainly involves technical and financial economic information. For national policy purposes additional data is collected, such as pesticide use, manure production, nature management, non-farm income and rural development. This report explains the background of the farm sample for the year 2003. The report mainly focuses on the Dutch contribution to the European Farm Accountancy Data Network. All phases from the determination of the selection plan, the recruitment of farms to the quality control of the final sample are described in this report. Mede voor de Europese Unie organiseren het CEI en het LEI jaarlijks de verzameling van technische en financieel-economische gegevens van circa 1.500 bedrijven in de akkerbouw, tuinbouw en veehouderij. Voor nationaal beleidsgericht onderzoek wordt die informatie aangevuld met gegevens over bijvoorbeeld milieubelasting, natuurbeheer en plattelandsontwikkeling. Alle gegevens worden vastgelegd in het Bedrijven-Informatienet. In dit rapport wordt verantwoording afgelegd over de steekproef 2003, toegespitst op de Nederlandse bijdrage aan het Farm Accountancy Data Network van de Europese Unie. De diverse fasen, van het opstellen van het selectieplan, het werven van de bedrijven tot het beoordelen van de kwaliteit van de resulterende steekproef worden beschreven.Agricultural Finance,

The treatment of hepatitis C: history, presence and future

The treatment of chronic hepatitis C has made remarkable progress over the past two decades. For interferon-alpha monotherapy, sustained virological response rates were between 2 and 9% in genotype 1 and between 16 and 23% in genotypes 2 and 3. By adjusting treatment duration up to 48 weeks for genotype 1 and combining regular interferon-alpha with ribavirin, sustained response rates could be improved to 28 to 31% in genotype 1 and around 65% in genotypes 2 and 3. Attempts to further increase efficacy included the addition of amantadine without conclusive evidence up till now. With the recent introduction of long-acting pegylated interferon-alpha in combination with ribavirin, sustained virological response rates of 8o% can be obtained in genotypes 2 and 3. However, sustained virological response rates for patients with either genotype 1, nonresponse to prior treatment, cirrhosis or a combination of these characteristics are still less than 50%. In view of results with daily high-dose interferon-alpha induction in combination with prolongation of treatment duration up to 18 months, such patients might benefit from induction and prolonged PEG-IFN-alpha treatment and should be treated in an experimental setting