Adjustment and differences in farm performance; A farm management perspective from the Netherlands

There are differences in performance between farmers. In the Netherlands this has been a major topic of research for at least 30 years. Research has shown that the managerial capacities of farmers play a major role in differences in economic and environmental performance. Management can be measured and the optimal level is not the maximum level. Farmers differ in their objectives, competences and local external situation and there-fore their strategies. These strategies can be identified. In recent years strategic management has become more important and this can be supported with consultancy. Farmers also differ in their adoption and innovation behaviour. These micro-economic results, which correlate with large differences in income and high prices of fixed assets with a limited supply, can be explained as being consistent with economic theory on perfect markets. Although these findings suggest that some farm households have attractive strategies that can cope with policy adjustments, the research supports the hypothesis but does not (yet) prove that a severe adjustment of agricultural policy e.g. towards a more market oriented policy, induces more innovation, and that due to this innovation the effects of adjusting the agricultural policy are less severe than estimated ex ante with current dynamic policy models.Farm Management,

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

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

Quality of life after liver transplantation : state of the art

Quality of life (QoL) after deceased donor liver transplantation is increasingly recognized as a major outcome parameter. We reviewed recent publications in this rapidly evolving field in order to summarize recent achievements in the field and to define opportunities and perspectives for research and improvement of patient care. QoL does improve after liver transplantation according to a typical pattern. During the first year, there is a significant improvement in QoL. After one year, the improvement does stabilise and tends to decline slightly. In addition to the physical condition, different psychological parameters (such as depression, anxiety, sexual function) and socio-demographic elements (professional state, sex, marital state) seem to impact QoL. Opportunities for further research are the use of dedicated questionnaires and identification of influencing factors for QoL

ROMS based hydrodynamic modelling focusing on the Belgian part of the southern North Sea

The North Sea is a shallow sea that forms a complex physical system. The nonlinear interaction of the astronomical tides, varying wind fields and varying pressure systems requires appropriate approaches to be described accurately. An application based on the advanced numerical model Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) was newly developed by the authors, tailored to simulate these hydrodynamic processes in the North Sea and the Belgian Continental Shelf, which is the area of particular interest in the present study. The purpose of this work is to develop and validate a state-of-the-art three-dimensional numerical model to form the basis of a compound operational and forecasting tool for the Belgian coastal zone. The model was validated with respect to water levels and temperature. Validation for astronomical tides was accomplished through the comparison of the principal constituents between the model results and observations at a number of tidal gauges in Belgium and other countries. A statistical analysis of the results showed that the model behaves as expected throughout the North Sea. The model response to the varying meteorological conditions was also validated using hindcast data for 2011 as input. In this case, the comparison between observed and modelled water levels showed a good agreement with average RMSE in Belgium 9.5 cm. Overall, the added value of this work is the development of an independent model for validation and comparison with other models and which can be used as an efficient tool for operational and forecasting purposes