Assessing the risk of farmland abandonment in the EU

An expert panel of European scientists in fields related to land abandonment (bio-physical / land suitability, farm structure, farm economics, land market, regional development, socio and economic factors in rural areas) were tasked to identify main drivers of farmland abandonment in Europe. Two sets of criteria for assessing the risk have been suggested: Low farm stability and viability was estimated through drivers on ‘low farm income’ (D2), ‘lack of investments on the farm’ (D3), ‘farm-holder’s age’ (D4), ‘farm manager qualifications’ (D5), ‘low farm size’ (D8), ‘commitments taken by farmers in specific management scheme’ (D9). Negative regional context was estimated through indicators on ‘weak land market’ (D1), ‘low population density and remoteness’ from market opportunities and services (D7). Each of these drivers was calculated individually; an assessment was done to provide relevance and robustness of results, corresponding maps were produced. The results suggested a first group of powerful drivers (policy relevance, analytical soundness, data availability and robustness) composed of: ‘weak land market’ (D1), ‘low farm income’ (D2), ‘low density population and remoteness’ (D7). The second group of drivers with ‘lack of investments on the farm’ (D3) and ‘farm-holder’s age’ (D4) were policy relevant but reliability was lower when using European datasets. The third group of drivers (‘farm manager qualifications’ (D5), ‘low farm size’ (D8), and ‘commitments taken by farmers in specific management scheme’ (D9)) showed some deficiencies in analytical soundness and/or data reliability. They were not further used in the analysis. In order to produce a risk indicator of ‘farmland abandonment’, composite indices were developed based on Principal Component Analysis carried-out on the normalised values of the individual drivers. The normalisation procedure was performed at two different levels: (a) EU27 level as an attempt to elaborate a risk index covering EU27 in an homogeneous manner; and (b) MS level. For the composite indices, further analysis was done at NUTS2 level to relate those flagged with higher risk to the holding’s farm-types. It results that extensive and traditional farming systems with high proportions of permanent crops or permanent grasslands are the most frequent farm-types found in NUTS2 at risk.JRC.H.4-Monitoring Agricultural Resource

Final technical report: Certification of low carbon farming practices

In 2010, the European Parliament asked the European Commission to carry out a pilot project on the “certification of low-carbon farming practices in the European Union” to promote reductions of GHG emissions from farming. The overall aim of the project was to assess how efforts of European farmers to produce agricultural products with carbon-neutral or low-carbon-footprint farming practices might be incorporated into policy approaches (possibly via certification), so as to promote the reduction of GHG emissions from agriculture. The project included: i) a review of existing farm-level lifecycle-based climate-related certification and labelling schemes, ii) the development and testing of a user friendly open-source carbon calculator suitable for assessing the lifecycle GHG emissions from different types of farming systems across the whole EU, and iii) the design/assessment of policy options for promoting low-carbon farming practices.JRC.H.4-Monitoring Agricultural Resource

MARS Bulletin Vol 17 No 1

The annexed document is the template for the bulletin that will be issued on the 10th March. This bulletin covers meteorological analysis and crop yield forecasts for the period 21 November 2008 - 28 February 2009 (since the day after the last covered period, to the last day of the decade before)JRC.G.3-Monitoring agricultural resource

Crop monitoring in Europe - MARS Bulletin Vol. 23 No 10 (2015) - Difficult start for winter crops in Eastern and Northern Europe

Yield forecasts for summer crops at EU-28 level remain low and are comparable to last month’s forecast. September was warmer than usual in northern, eastern and south-eastern Europe and colder than usual in western Europe. October has generally been colder than usual so far, especially during the second dekad, when negative minimum temperatures occurred in many areas of central and eastern Europe. Wetterthan- usual conditions were recorded in south-eastern Europe, south-eastern France, central and southern Italy, northern Germany and several parts of northern Europe. Large areas in south-eastern Europe faced a period of abundant rains slowing down the harvesting activities of maize and sunflower and hampering the sowing of winter crops. Dry conditions have persisted in Poland, Lithuania, western Ukraine and southern Russia. In these regions, the winter crops sown in September germinated under unfavourable conditions which further worsened due to the low temperatures that occurred in October. The sowing of winter cereals has progressed without major problems in the EU’s largest producing states, France, Germany and the UK.JRC.H.4-Monitoring Agricultural Resource

MARS Bulletin Vol. 23 No 7 (2015) - Grain maize outlook worsened due to heat waves and drought

Crop monitoring in EuropeJRC.H.4-Monitoring Agricultural Resource

JRC MARS Bulletin: Crop monitoring in Europe: February 2018

Winter conditions so far present no threat to winter cropsJRC.D.5-Food Securit

JRC MARS Bulletin - Crop monitoring in Europe, November 2018

Harvesting of root and tuber crops also affected In large parts of central Europe, persistently dry soil conditions, complicated field preparations and sowing operations, and limited plant emergence and early crop development. Rapeseed areas in Germany, eastern Poland and northern Czechia are expected to be significantly reduced. Soft wheat can still be (re)sown in some countries. Favourable conditions for the sowing and emergence of winter crops prevailed in most parts of western and northern Europe.JRC.D.5-Food Securit

JRC MARS Bulletin global outlook 2019: Crop monitoring European neighbourhood: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt: June 2019

The cereal campaign in North Africa was characterised by negative rainfall supply and distribution in the west, ranging to positive conditions in the east. Morocco was clearly impacted by drought conditions in the regions of Tensif, Centre and Oriental. Some regions in western Algeria were also impacted, but the unfavourable conditions were more than compensated by good conditions in eastern Algeria. Finally, crops in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt had a good to very good season.JRC.D.5-Food Securit

Performance of the MARS-crop yield forecasting system for the European Union: Assessing accuracy, in-season, and year-to-year improvements from 1993 to 2015

19,980 crop yield forecasts have been published for the European Union (EU) Member States (MS) during 1993-2015 using the MARS-Crop Yield Forecasting System (MCYFS). We assess the performance of these forecasts for soft wheat, durum wheat, grain maize, rapeseed, sunflower, potato and sugar beet, and sought to answer three questions. First, how good has the system performed? This was investigated by calculating several accuracy indicators (e.g. the mean absolute percentage error, MAPE) for the first forecasts during a season, forecasts one month pre-harvest, and the end-of-campaign (EOC) forecasts during 2006-2015 using reported yields. Second, do forecasts improve during the season? This was evaluated by comparing the accuracy of the first, the pre-harvest, and the EOC forecasts. Third, have forecasts systematically improved year-to-year? This was quantified by testing whether linear models fitted to the median of the national level absolute relative forecast errors for each crop at EU-12 (EU-27) level from 1993 to 2015 (2006-2015) were characterized by significant negative slopes. Encouragingly, the lowest median MAPE across all crops is obtained for Europe’s largest producer, France, equalling 3.73%. Similarly, the highest median MAPE is obtained for Portugal, at 14.37%. Forecasts generally underestimated reported yields, with a systematic underestimation across all MS for soft wheat, rapeseed and sugar beet forecasts. Forecasts generally improve during the growing season; both the forecast error and its variability tend to progressively decrease. This is the case for the cereals, and to a lesser extent for the tuber crops, while seasonal forecast improvements are lower for the oilseed crops. The median EU-12 yield forecasts for rapeseed, potato and sugar beet have significantly (p-value<0.05) improved from 1993 to 2015. No evidence was found for improvements for the other crops, neither was there any significant improvement in any of the crop forecasts from 2006 to 2015, evaluated at EU-27 level. In the early years of the MCYFS, most of the yield time series were characterized by strong trends; nowadays yield growth has slowed or even plateaued in several MS. In addition, an increased volatility in yield statistics is observed, and while crop yield forecasts tend to improve in a given year, in recent years, there is no evidence of structural improvements that carry-over from year-to-year. This underlines that renewed efforts to improve operational crop yield forecasting are needed, especially in the light of the increasingly variable and occasionally unprecedented climatic conditions impacting the EU’s crop production systems.JRC.D.5-Food Securit

JRC MARS Bulletin global outlook 2019: Crop monitoring European neighbourhood: Turkey: May 2019

Winter cereals are progressing well and above-average yields are forecast. For summer crops, which made a positive start to the season, the forecasts are still based on historical trendsJRC.D.5-Food Securit