8 research outputs found
Policies and Farming System Resilience
The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy appears essential for farming systems’ resilience, but its resilience-enabling effects in practice remain underexplored. We assessed how farming system actors perceive the CAP’s effects on resilience. The CAP contains a robustness-oriented approach, which actors expect to buffer stress and shocks, while adaptation receives less support and transformation is neglected. Policies need to a take a broader, integrated approach towards farming systems’ resilience
D5.3 Resilience assessment of current farming systems across the European Union
For improving sustainability and resilience of EU farming system, the current state needs to be
assessed, before being able to move on to future scenarios. Assessing sustainability and resilience
of farming systems is a multi-faceted research challenge in terms of the scientific domains and
scales of integration (farm, household, farming system level) that need to be covered. Hence, in
SURE-Farm, multiple approaches are used to evaluate current sustainability and resilience and its
underlying structures and drivers. To maintain consistency across the different approaches, all
approaches are connected to a resilience framework which was developed for the unique
purposes of SURE-Farm. The resilience framework follows five steps: 1) the farming system
(resilience of what?), 2) challenges (resilience to what?), 3) functions (resilience for what
purpose?), 4) resilience capacities, 5) resilience attributes (what enhances resilience?). The
framework was operationalized in 11 case studies across the EU.
Applied approaches differ in disciplinary orientation and the farming system process they focus
on. Three approaches focus on risk management: 1) a farm survey with a main focus on risk
management and risk management strategies, 2) interviews on farmers’ learning capacity and
networks of influence, and 3) Focus Groups on risk management. Two approaches address farm
demographics: 4) interviews on farm demographics, and 5) AgriPoliS Focus Group workshops on
structural change of farming systems from a (farm) demographics perspective. One approach
applied so far addresses governance: 6) the Resilience Assessment Tool that evaluates how
policies and legislation support resilience of farming systems. Two methods address agricultural
production and delivery of public and private goods: 7) the Framework of Participatory Impact
Assessment for sustainable and resilient farming systems (FoPIA-SURE-Farm), aiming to integrate
multiple perspectives at farming system level, and 8) the Ecosystem Services assessment that
evaluates the delivery of public and private goods. In a few case studies, additional methods were
applied. Specifically, in the Italian case study, additional statistical approaches were used to
increase the support for risk management options (Appendix A and Appendix B).
Results of the different methods were compared and synthesized per step of the resilience
framework. Synthesized results were used to determine the position of the farming system in the
adaptive cycle, i.e. in the exploitation, conservation, release, or reorganization phase. Dependent
on the current phase of the farming system, strategies for improving sustainability and resilience
were developed.
Results were synthesized around the three aspects characterizing the SURE-Farm framework, i.e.
(i) it studies resilience at the farming system level, (ii) considers three resilience capacities, and
(iii) assesses resilience in the context of the (changing) functions of the system.
(i) Many actors are part of the farming system. However, resilience-enhancing strategies are
mostly defined at the farm level. In each farming system multiple actors are considered to
be part of the system, such as consultants, neighbors, local selling networks and nature
organizations. The number of different farming system actors beyond the focal farmers
varies between 4 (in French beef and Italian hazelnut systems) and 14 (large-scale arable
systems in the UK). These large numbers of actors illustrate the relevance of looking at
farming system level rather than at farm level. It also suggests that discussions about
resilience and future strategies need to embrace all of these actors.
(ii) At system level there is a low perceived capacity to transform. Yet, most systems appear to
be at the start of a period in which (incremental) transformation is required. At system level,
the capacity to transform is perceived to be relatively low, except in the Romanian mixed
farming system. The latter may reflect a combination of ample room to grow and a relatively
stable environment (especially when compared to the past 30 to 50 years). The relatively
low capacity to transform in the majority of systems is not in line with the suggestion that
most systems are at the start of (incremental) transformation, or, at least, reached a
situation in which they can no longer grow. Further growth is only deemed possible in the
Belgium dairy, Italian hazelnut, Polish fruit and Romanian mixed farming systems.
(iii) System functions score well with regard to the delivery of high-quality and safe food but face
problems with quality of rural life and protecting biodiversity. Resilience capacities can only
be understood in the context of the functions to be delivered by a farming system. We find
that across all systems required functions are a mix of private and public goods. With regard
to the capacity to deliver private goods, all systems perform well with respect to high-quality
and safe food. Viability of farm income is regarded moderate or low in the livestock systems
in Belgium (dairy), France (beef) and Sweden (broilers), and the fruit farming system in
Poland. Across all functions, attention is especially needed for the delivery of public goods.
More specifically the quality of rural life and infrastructure are frequently classified as being
important, but currently performing bad. Despite the concerns about the delivery of public
goods, many future strategies still focus on improving the delivery of private goods.
Suggestions in the area of public goods include among others the implementation of
conservation farming in the UK arable system, improved water management in the Italian
hazelnut system, and introduction of technologies which reduce the use of herbicides in
Polish fruit systems. It is questionable whether these are sufficient to address the need to
improve the maintenance of natural resources, biodiversity and attractiveness of rural
areas. With regard to the changing of functions over time, we did not find evidence for this
in our farming systems
Cooperatives adapting to market conditions: insights from a comparative study of apple and pear farming in Poland, Italy and Belgium
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D4.6: Policy brief with a critical analysis of how current policies constrain/enable resilient European agriculture and suggestions for improvements, including recommendations for the CAP post-2020 reform (final version)
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union is essential to enhance the resilience of Europe’s farming systems along three capacities: robustness, adaptability and transformability. The SURE-Farm project conducted the first systematic assessment how the CAP performs in this regard. The findings show that hitherto the CAP has been overly focused on supporting the robustness of an increasingly fragile status quo, with uneven effects, while neglecting adaptability and even constraining transformability. The future CAP needs to allow for a better balance with policy mixes that are tailored to regional needs, based on a shared long-term vision. This impliesreplacing direct payments with measures that specifically address resilience needs, e.g. points-based eco-schemes, agro-environmental programs, coordinated adaptation to shifting markets, ample support for cross-sectoral cooperation, innovation and advice to integrate production and provision of public goods, and participatory and integrative foresight to develop transformation pathways