Modern Agricultural Entrepreneurship

Drastic changes in Dutch agriculture have made agricultural entrepreneurship increasingly complex. But are farmers dealing with this complexity, and if so, how? This study, entitled "The mystery of entrepreneurship", attempts to answer these questions. The aim of the research is to provide insight into the actual state of the art of Dutch agricultural entrepreneurship. This will clarify for policy makers how, and if, agricultural entrepreneurs are dealing with the radical changes in agriculture that are facing them. Answers to these questions will indicate how agricultural entrepreneurship can be stimulated. The final stage of the research will consider how to translate the results into agricultural education. The research will be focussed on the personal characteristics of entrepreneurs, on the different strategies they use to deal with the radical changes in agriculture, on their use of the knowledge infrastructure and, consequently, their use of social networks and on innovativeness. In addition, managerial tasks of entrepreneurs will be studied as well as the extent to which different farmers are oriented towards products, processes, system, chain and society, because this gives an impression of the stage of development of the farms. A survey of 1500 agricultural entrepreneurs, supplemented by more detailed qualitative information gathered from 45 farms by means of structural interviewing, comprise the material for answering our questions about entrepreneurship. Some preliminary results are presented here to illustrate how a farm feature, such as a way of farming, an environmental factor such as region and a personal feature such as age, can affect entrepreneurship.Agribusiness,

Beleidsevaluatie Diergezondheidsfonds

Het ministerie van Landbouw, Natuur en Voedselkwaliteit heeft Wageningen Economic Research gevraagd om een beleidsdoorlichting van het Diergezondheidsfonds (DGF) uit te voeren. Dit is een syntheseonderzoek naar zowel de doeltreffendheid als de doelmatigheid van het DGF in de periode 2000-2017. De bijdrage van het bedrijfsleven aan de financiering van het DGF gebeurt conform de afspraken gemaakt in het Convenant financiering besmettelijke dierziekten. Aanbevolen wordt om de huidige structuur en opzet van de financiering van het DGF te handhaven

Handelsverkeer in de mestmarkt: opties voor interventies

The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality is looking for action strategies to reduce the risk of fraud in the manure market. This can be done by means of lower manure disposal costs and by introducing a competing interest for exports. The high costs of manure disposal can be tackled by reducing supply or increasing demand. Processing a larger amount of manure, with adequate corresponding enforcement, is the most realistic of the options. The presence of competing interests between the manure supplier and the buyer as regards the amount of minerals serves to inhibit fraud. This is lacking in the case of exports because no mineral accounting needs to be approved abroad. Here too, co-ordination with other countries could create competing interests and thus reduce the incentive to defraud

Beleidsinstrumenten voor energie-neutrale en klimaatvriendelijke agrosectoren : zoektocht naar de optimale instrumentenmix

Greenhouse horticulture, dairy farming and intensive livestock farming have access to policy and otherinstruments that help these sectors move closer to their energy and climate objectives. However, whilesome objectives for 2020 are close to being achieved, others are more remote. This applies in particularto the production of renewable energy and the reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions in the dairysector, as well as the production of renewable energy using co-fermentation and the reduction of CO2emissions in intensive livestock farming. Education, economic incentives and regulations and legislationrepresent the major instruments used. Horticulture uses more specific instruments tailored to the natureof the sector, while livestock farming largely favours generic instruments. Regular reviews are carriedout to assess whether the instruments still incentivise the appropriate behaviour and do not fundinnovations that are already out of date or do not contribute to long-term objectives. A point forattention, however, is the limited number of tools – or limited support – for business owners to movecloser to their climate and energy objectives. This is in spite of the need for business owners to have aperspective for action. Alongside this, current communication and knowledge transfer appear toconcentrate on business owners who are actively working toward these objectives, even though more‘passive’ business owners should also be involved in developments---In de glastuinbouw, melkveehouderij en intensieve veehouderij zijn beleids- en andere instrumenteningezet om energie- en klimaatdoelstellingen te halen. De doelen voor 2020 zijn nog niet allemaalgehaald en zijn soms ook niet binnen handbereik. Dit geldt met name voor productie van duurzameenergie en reductie van broeikasgassen in de melkveehouderij en voor productie van duurzameenergie door co-vergisting en reductie van CO2-emissie in de intensieve veehouderij. Educatie,economische incentives en wet- en regelgeving zijn de belangrijkste instrumenten. De glastuinbouwgebruikt meer specifieke tuinbouwgerichte instrumenten, terwijl de veehouderij vooral generiekeinstrumenten inzet. Regelmatig wordt herzien of de instrumenten nog wel het juiste gedragondersteunen en niet inzetten op innovaties die al achterhaald zijn of niet bijdragen aan lange termijndoelen. Een aandachtspunt is dat het aantal tools of handvatten om ondernemers te helpen klimaatenenergiedoelstellingen na te streven nog beperkt is terwijl juist handelingsperspectief belangrijk isvoor ondernemers. Daarnaast lijkt communicatie en kennisoverdracht nu nog vooral gericht te zijn opondernemers die actief een bijdrage willen leveren, terwijl ook andere, meer passieve ondernemersmeegenomen moeten worden in de ontwikkelingen

Ondernemers en de actoren in hun omgeving in beweging: Zoektocht naar rode draden in agrarische transitieprocessen

With the aid of a theoretically-based analysis of four historical and four current change processes - or transition case studies - in agriculture, we have made a study of how farmers and their associated actors move towards a sustainable agriculture. The change processes always appear to need the same 'conditions' in order to be successful and also appear always to encounter the same types of obstacles. It may be concluded from this that better advance anticipation of obstacles' hanging above the heads' of people involved in change needs to be possible, so that the envisaged change processes can proceed more easily. It remains a fact, however, that every change process also encounters unmanageable, unpredictable obstacles.Farm Management,

Circular Business Models and Circular Agriculture: Perceptions and Practices of Dutch Farmers

Although it is not clear yet what a full-grown circular economy (CE) is going to look like, it is clear that the challenges of transitioning to a CE are both impressive and urgent. The Dutch government has expressed the ambition to establish a CE in the Netherlands in 2050. In the wake of this, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality laid down a vision on circular agriculture (CA). A key question with respect to both CE and CA is if and to what extent this means business as unusual: How distinct is circular business from normal business operations? The ways in which the notions of CE and circular business models (CBMs) are often introduced suggest a big difference. However, closer scrutiny also reveals that in practice the impact of circularity is less obvious. Against the backdrop of such opposite observations, this paper examines how Dutch farmers perceive circularity and what implications this has for their production practices. Interviews (n = 13) with Dutch farmers show that circular business is adapted in normal business management by some and regarded as a genuine alternative to the conventional food system by others. By taking Dutch farmers as an example, this paper aims to contribute to our understanding of how CE is interpreted in small and medium enterprises (SME