SURE-Farm approach to assess the resilience of European farming systems

Meuwissen, Miranda P. M. et al. Book Part — Published Version SURE-Farm approach to assess the resilience of European farming systems Suggested Citation: Meuwissen, Miranda P. M. et al. (2022) : SURE-Farm approach to assess the resilience of European farming systems, In: Meuwissen, Miranda P. M. Feindt, Peter H. Garrido, Alberto Mathijs, Erik Soriano, Bárbara Urquhart, Julie Spiegel, Alisa (Ed.): Resilient and sustainable farming systems in Europe: Exploring diversity and pathways, ISBN 978-1-009-09356-9, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 1-17, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009093569.002 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/253423 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 1 | SURE-Farm Approach to Assess the Resilience of European Farming Systems miranda p. m. meuwissen, peter h. feindt, alisa spiegel, wim paas, ba ´rbara soriano, erik mathijs, alfons balmann, julie urquhart, birgit kopainsky, alberto garrido and pytrik reidsma Resilience is a latent property of a system. The concept denotes a potential which is activated –and can be observed – only when a system is hit by stress or shocks. It can thus be understood by learning from past trajectories and discussing future scenarios, and from assessing how actual shocks are dealt with. (Meuwissen et al., 2021) 1.1 The Resilience Challenge for Europe’s Farming Systems Farming systems in Europe face accumulating economic, environmental, institutional, and social challenges. Examples include the impact of extreme weather events, reduced access to markets and value chains (e.g. due to trade wars, political boycotts or Brexit), less stable and less protective policy environments, increasing controversies about agricultural mainstream practices, and more recently the interruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. These uncertainties exacerbate demographic issues such as a lack of successors to enable generational renewal at the farm level, and insufficient availability of qualified seasonal and permanent labour (Pitson et al., 2020). The compounding challenges raise concerns about the resilience of Europe’s farming systems. The ability of farming systems to cope with challenges can be conceptualized as resilience (Folke, 2016). Resilience theory emphasizes change, uncertainty, and the capacity of systems to adapt (Holling et al., 2002). Several resilience frameworks had already been developed and applied to systems at levels below or above the farming system, such as farms (e.g. Darnhofer, 2014), food supply chains (Stone and 1 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009093569.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press Rahimifard, 2018) and socio-ecological systems (Walker et al., 2004). These frameworks provide useful insights into capacities and attributes that enhance or constrain resilience. However, it was still unclear how these and other attributes were to be assessed at the level of farming systems, where farmers compete and collaborate, interact with nonfarm neighbours, contribute to variegated value chains and cooperate across sectors. How farming systems are expected to deliver their various functions differs across places and changes over time in response to inter alia changing consumer and societal preferences. Against this background we developed the SURE-Farm 1 approach. This approach consists of the SURE-Farm framework (Meuwissen et al., 2019) and the systematic consideration of regional contexts, the collaboration of multiple disciplines and the deployment of mixed methods. Each component of the approach is elaborated below. 1.2 The SURE-Farm Resilience Framework In developing the SURE-Farm resilience framework (Meuwissen et al., 2019), we built on the social-ecological tradition of resilience thinking (Holling et al., 2002; Walker and Salt, 2006; Folke, 2016) and defined the resilience of a farming system as its ability to ensure the provision of its desired functions in the face of often complex and accumulating economic, social, environmental and institutional shocks and stresses, through capacities of robustness, adaptability and transformability (Meuwissen et al., 2019). In addition, we referred to insights from the Resilience Alliance (2010) that the resilience of a system is affected by its specific characteristics, i.e. the system’s resilience attributes. This is brought together in the SURE-Farm resilience framework (Figure 1.1). The framework is designed to assess resilience to known and specific challenges such as extreme weather events (specified resilience) as well as a farming system’s capacity to deal with the unknown, uncertain and surprise (general resilience). Due to the complex multifaceted nature of resilience, the framework suggests to follow five analytical steps with guiding questions: (1) characterization of the farming system –resilience of what, (2) identification of challenges – resilience to what, (3) analysis of system functions –resilience for what purpose, (4) evaluation of system responses –what resilience 1 Towards SUstainable and REsilient EU-FARMing systems (SURE-Farm). 2Meuwissen, Feindt, Spiegel, et al. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009093569.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press capacities, and (5) examination of resilience attributes –what enhances resilience. The first step of the framework (resilience of what) addresses the identification of farming systems in their own locality. A farming system consists of farmers producing (main) product(s) of interest, e.g. fruits and vegetables, and the regional context, e.g. the Mazovian region in Poland. Not all farms in a region are necessarily part of the same farming system, i.e. there may be several farming systems in one region which focus on different products. Besides farmers, further actors, including other members of the supply chain and local institutions, belong to the farming system. The other farming system actors are identified based on patterns of influence; farms and other farming system actors mutually influence each other. Because farming systems work in open agro-ecological systems and are linked to various social networks, value chains, economic processes and ecological systems, their activities can have multiple effects, e.g. through job and income creation, network effects, resource use, landscape impacts and emissions (see Step 3). These external effects and public goods also characterize the farming system. While the framework focuses on the farming system level, analyses include nested levels, such as the household, farm and farmer level, the farming system and higher levels which form the context of the farming system, such as national regulations; societal, economic and environmental macro-trends; or transnational flows of goods and services. This reflects the open character of farming systems. The second step of the framework (resilience to what) identifies shocks and stresses that affect the farming system. We consider economic, environmental, social and institutional challenges that could 1. Resilience of what? Farming systems in their own locality 2. Resilience to what? Shocks and stresses 3. Resilience for what purpose? Delivery of private & public goods 4. What resilience capacities? 5. What enhances resilience? Resilience attributes Robustness, adaptability, transformability Figure 1.1 The five steps of the SURE-Farm resilience framework (Meuwissen et al., 2019). SURE-Farm Approach to Assess the Resilience of EU FS 3 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009093569.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press impede the ability of the farming system to deliver the desired public and private goods. Stresses develop with gradual changes of the system’s environment, such as the steady diffusion of pests and diseases, ageing of rural populations or changing consumer preferences. Looking back at historic trajectories, also shocks which were unknown, unexpected and unimagined at that moment can be assessed. For instance, the SURE-Farm approach was used to assess the impact of COVID-19 and to understand how and why systems were able to cope (Meuwissen et al., 2021). The third step (resilience for what purpose) addresses the desired functions of the farming system. Farming systems’functions can be divided into the provision of private and public goods (Table 1.1). Private goods include the production of food and other bio-based resources, but also ensuring a reasonable livelihood and quality of life for people involved in farming. Public goods include maintaining natural resources and biodiversity in good condition, animal welfare Table 1.1. Typology of farming system functions in SURE-Farm (Meuwissen et al., 2019) Short name Private goods Deliver healthy and affordable food products Food production Deliver other bio-based resources for the processing sector Bio-based resources Ensure economic viability (viable farms help to strengthen the economy and contribute to balanced territorial development) Economic viability Improve quality of life in rural areas by providing employment and offering decent working conditions Quality of life Public goods Maintain natural resources in good condition (water, soil, air) Natural resources Protect biodiversity of habitats, genes and species Biodiversity and habitat Ensure that rural areas are attractive places for residence and tourism (countryside, social structures) Attractiveness of the area Ensure animal health and welfare Animal health and welfare 4Meuwissen, Feindt, Spiegel, et al. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009093569.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press and ensuring that rural areas are attractive places for residence and tourism. Farming systems generally provide multiple functions. Performance and importance of each function can be represented by one or more indicators. In the fourth step (what resilience capacities) we distinguish three resilience capacities: robustness, adaptability and transformability. Robustness is the coping capacity of a farming system, i.e. its capacity to withstand stresses and (un)anticipated shocks. Adaptability is the capacity to change the composition of inputs, production, marketing and risk management in response to shocks and stresses but without changing the structures and feedback mechanisms of the farming system. Transformability is the capacity to significantly change the internal structure and feedback mechanisms of the farming system into a desired direction in response to either severe shocks or enduring stress that make business as usual impossible. The distinction between three resilience capacities (robustness, adaptability, transformability) ensures that the framework goes beyond narrow definitions that limit resilience to robustness. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of middleand long-term analysis and strategies, as adaptation and especially transformation take time. The fifth step of the framework (what enhances resilience) assesses the resilience-enhancing attributes defined as those system and enabling environment characteristics that contribute to resilience. We modified the list of Cabell and Oelofse (2012) as described by Paas et al. (2021a). Attributes are listed in Table 1.2. Most attributes relate to characteristics of the farming systems, such as ‘reasonably profitable’ (attribute 1) and ‘optimally redundant farms’(attribute 7), while other attributes illustrate the role of the enabling environment. For instance, actors and institutions in the enabling environment can support the provision of functions as in attribute 8 (‘supports rural life’), stimulate resilience capacities through ‘diverse policies’(attribute 13) or invest resources, e.g. through ‘reflective and shared learning’(attribute 20). 1.3 The Relevance of Regional Context The resilience of farming systems must be understood in the regional context. Each farming system has co-evolved with a specific socialecological environment. The activities of the different actors which constitute a farming system –e.g. farms, farmers’organizations, service SURE-Farm Approach to Assess the Resilience of EU FS 5 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009093569.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press Table 1.2. Resilience attributes in the SURE-Farm framework and short explanation of each attribute (based on Reidsma et al., 2020 and Paas et al., 2021a) 1 Resilience attributes 2 Explanation 1. Reasonable profitability a1 Farmers and farm workers earn a livable wage while not depending heavily on subsidies. 2. Production coupled with local and natural capital a2,b Soil fertility, water resources and existing nature are maintained well. 3. Functional diversity c There is a high variety of inputs, outputs, income sources and markets. 4. Response diversity c There is a high diversity of risk management strategies, e.g. different types of pest control, weather insurance, flexible payment arrangements. 5. Exposure to disturbance d The amount of year-to-year economic, environmental, social or institutional disturbance is small in order to timely adapt to a changing environment. 6. Spatial and temporal heterogeneity of farm types c,e There is a high diversity of farm types with regard to economic size, intensity, orientation and degree of specialization. 7. Redundancy between farms e Farmers can stop without endangering continuation of the farming system and new farmers can enter the farming system easily. 8. Support of rural life a3 Rural life is supported by the presence of people from all generations, and also supported by enough facilities in the nearby area (e.g. supermarkets, hospital). 9. Social self-organization a3,b Farmers are able to organize themselves into networks and institutions such as cooperatives, community associations, advisory networks and clusters with the processing industry. 10. Appropriate connectedness with actors outside the farming system b Farmers and other actors in the farming system are able to reach out to policy makers, suppliers and markets that operate at the national and EU level. 6Meuwissen, Feindt, Spiegel, et al. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009093569.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press Table 1.2. (cont.) Resilience attributes 2 Explanation 11. Legislation coupled with local and natural capital a3 Norms, legislation and regulatory frameworks are well adapted to the local conditions. 12. Infrastructure for innovation a,d Existing infrastructure facilitates knowledge and adoption of cutting-edge technologies (e.g. digital). 13. Diverse policies c Policies stimulate all three capacities of resilience, i.e. robustness, adaptability, transformability. 14. Ecological self-regulation b Farms maintain plant cover and incorporate more perennials, provide habitat for predators, use ecosystem engineers and align production with local ecological parameters. 15. Redundancy of crops e Planting multiple varieties per crop rather than one; keeping equipment for various crops. 16. Redundancy of nutrients and water e Getting nutrients and water from multiple sources. 17. Redundancy of labour e Labour comes from multiple sources. 18. Spatial and temporal heterogeneity (land use) c,e Diverse land use on the farm and across the landscape; mosaic pattern of managed and unmanaged land; diverse cultivation practices; crop rotations. 19. Global autonomy and local interdependence d Less reliance on commodity markets and reduced external inputs, more sales to local markets, reliance on local resources, existence of farmer cooperatives, close relationships between producers and consumers, shared resources such as equipment 20. Reflectivity and shared learning d Extension and advisory services for farmers; collaboration between universities, research centres, and farmers; cooperation and knowledge sharing between farmers; record keeping; baseline knowledge about the state of the agroecosystem. SURE-Farm Approach to Assess the Resilience of EU FS 7 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009093569.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press suppliers and supply chain actors –are enabled by regional environments and deliver the specific functions of the farming system, in particular agricultural products and public goods. The SURE-Farm approach was applied to eleven farming systems which represent different challenges, farm types, agro-ecological zones, products and public goods (Figure 1.2). Table 1.2. (cont.) Resilience attributes 2 Explanation 21. Honoured legacy b,a3 Maintenance of old varieties and engagement of elders; incorporation of traditional cultivation techniques with modern knowledge. 22. Building up of human capital a3 Investment in infrastructure and institutions for the education of children and adults; support for social events in farming communities; programs for preservation of local knowledge. 1 Attributes 1–13 were central in most of the SURE-Farm analyses; attributes 14–22 were used in the assessment of resilience in the future (Chapter 17). 2 Superscripts indicate links with the general resilience attributes (Resilience Alliance, 2010), i.e. a: system reserves (a1: economic capital, a2: natural capital, a3: social capital); b: tightness of feedbacks; c: diversity; d: openness; e: modularity. General resilience attributes are reported in the annexes of the case study chapters (Chapters 6–16). 1 2 8 5 47 3 9 10 11 6 Large-scale corporate arable farming with additional livestock activities in the Altmark in East Germany 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Intensive dairy farming in Flanders, Belgium Large-scale arable farming in Northeast Bulgaria Intensive arable farming in Veenkoloniën, the Netherlands Arable farming in the East of England, UK Small-scale mixed farming in Northeast Romania Extensive beef cattle system in the Massif Central, France Extensive sheep farming in Northeast Spain High-value egg and broiler farming in Southern Sweden Small-scale hazelnut production in Lazio, central Italy Fruit and vegetable farming in the Mazovian region, Poland Figure 1.2 The eleven farming systems included in the SURE-Farm assessments. 8Meuwissen, Feindt, Spiegel, et al. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009093569.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press demographic change across EU-farming systems and its influencing factors. Deliverable 3.2, SURE-Farm. Darnhofer, I. (2014). Resilience and why it matters for farm management. European Review of Agricultural Economics, 41(3), 461–484. Folke, C. (2016). Resilience (republished). Ecology and Society, 21(4), 44. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-09088-210444. Herrera, H., Kopainsky, B., Appel, F., et al. (2018). Impact assessment tool to assess the resilience of farming systems and their delivery of private and public goods. Deliverable 5.1, SURE-Farm. Holling, C. S., Gunderson, L. H., & Peterson, G. D. (2002). Sustainability and panarchies. In: L. H. Gunderson & C. S. Holling (eds.), Panarchy: Understanding transformations in human and natural systems. Washington, DC: Island Press, 63–102.Kay, R. D., Edwards, W. M., & Duffy, P. A. (2016). Farm management. New York: McGraw-Hill Education. Mathijs, E., Deckers, J., Kopainsky, B., Nitzko, S., & Spiller, A. (2018). Scenarios for EU farming. Deliverable 1.2, SURE-Farm. Meuwissen, M. P. M., Feindt, P. H., Spiegel, A., et al. (2019). A framework to assess the resilience of farming systems. Agricultural Systems, 176, 102656. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2019.102656. Meuwissen, M. P. M., Feindt, P. H., Slijper, T., et al. (2021). Impact of Covid-19 on farming systems in Europe through the lens of resilience thinking. Agricultural Systems, forthcoming. Mitter, H., Techen, A.-K., Sinabell, F., et al. (2020). Shared socio-economic Pathways for European agriculture and food systems: The Eur-AgriSSPs. Global Environmental Change, 65, 102159. Nicholas-Davies, P., Fowler, S., Midmore, P., et al. (2021). Evidence of adaptive capacities in farmers’narratives: accounts of robustness, adaptability and transformability in five different European farming systems. In preparation. Paas, W., Coopmans, I., Severini, S., van Ittersum, M. K., Meuwissen, M. P. M., & Reidsma, P. (2021a). Participatory assessment of sustainability and resilience of three specialized farming systems. Ecology and Society,26(2),2.www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol26/ iss2/art2/. (2021b). Assessing sustainability and resilience of future farming systems with a participatory method: A case study on extensive sheep farming in Huesca, Spain. Under revision. Paas, W, Meuwissen, M. P. M., Ittersum, M. K., & Reidsma, P. (2021c). Temporal variability of economic and environmental farm performance: a resilience perspective on potato producing regions in the Netherlands. In preparation. SURE-Farm Approach to Assess the Resilience of EU FS 15 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009093569.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press Pitson, C., Appel, F., Dong, C., & Balmann, A. (2019). Report on the formulation and adaptation of an agent-based model to simulate generational renewal. Deliverable 3.4, SURE-Farm. Pitson, C., Appel, F., & Balmann, A. (2020). Policy options for resilienceenhancing farm demographics. Policy brief SURE-Farm, https://www .surefarmproject.eu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/D3.9_Policybrief-on-farm-demographics.pdf. Reidsma, P., Spiegel, A., Paas, W., et al. (2019). Resilience assessment of current farming systems across the European Union. Deliverable 5.3, SURE-Farm. Reidsma, P., Paas, W., Accatino, F., et al. (2020). Impacts of improved strategies and policy options on the resilience of farming systems across the EU. Deliverable 5.6, SURE-Farm. Resilience Alliance (2010). Assessing resilience in social-ecological systems: Workbook for practitioners. Version 2.0. Online: http://www .resalliance.org/3871.php. Slijper, T., de Mey, Y., Poortvliet, M. P., Meuwissen, M. P. M. (2021). Quantifying European farm resilience using FADN. In preparation. Soriano, B., Bardaji, I., Bertolozzi, D., et al. (2020). Report on state and outlook for risk management in EU agriculture. Deliverable 2.6, SUREFarm. Soriano, B., Garrido, A., Bertolozzi, D., et al. (2021). Exploring how risk management contributes to farming systems’resilience. In preparation. Spiegel, A., Slijper, T., de Mey, Y., et al. (2021). Resilience capacities as perceived by European farmers. Submitted. Stone, J., & Rahimifard, S. (2018). Resilience in agri-food supply chains: A critical analysis of the literature and synthesis of a novel framework. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 23(3), 207–238. https://doi.org/10.1108/SCM-06-2017-0201. Termeer, K., Candel, J., Feindt, P. H., & Buitenhuis, Y. (2018). Assessing how Policies enable or constrain the resilience of farming systems in the European Union: the Resilience Assessment Tool (ResAT). Deliverable 4.1, SURE-Farm. Urquhart, J., Accatino, F., Antonioli, A., et al. (2021). Exploring the role of ‘networks of influence’for risk management in European farming systems. In preparation. Walker, B., & Salt, D. (2006). Resilience thinking: Sustaining ecosystems and people in a changing world. Washington, DC: Island Press. Walker, B., Holling, C. S., Carpenter, S. R., & Kinzig, A. (2004). Resilience, adaptability and transformability in social–ecological systems. Ecology and Society, 9(2), 5. 16 Meuwissen, Feindt, Spiegel, et al. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009093569.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press Wauters, E., Mathijs, E., Coopmans, I., et al. (2021). Roadmaps for the implementation of principles for a resilience enabling environment. Deliverable 6.4, SURE-Farm. Zinnanti, C., Schimmenti, E., Borsellino, V., Paolini, G., & Severini, S. (2019). Economic performance and risk of farming systems specialized in perennial crops: An analysis of Italian hazelnut production. Agricultural Systems, 176, 102645. SURE-Farm Approach to Assess the Resilience of EU FS 17 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009093569.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press