SURE-Farm: Towards SUstainable and REsilient EU FARMing systems
SURE-Farm aims to analyze, assess and improve the resilience and sustainability of farms and farming systems in the EU. The UiB team leads the development of system dynamics models to contribute to the assessment of resilience in several case studies.
About the research project
- Project title: Towards SUstainable and REsilient EU FARMing systems (SURE-Farm)
- Funding: EU, Horizon 2020
- Project coordinator: Wageningen University & Research.
- Partners involved: The consortium comprises of 16 partners distributed over 13 European countries.
- Staff involved: Birgit Kopainsky, Hugo Jose Herrera de Leon
Objectives
Resilience and sustainability of Europe’s farming systems can no longer be taken for granted, as the sectors’ economic, social and ecological environment becomes more complex and volatile. Using resilience thinking, SURE-Farm develops a comprehensive resilience enabling framework, develops and applies resilience assessment tools and co-creates implementation roadmaps. Its objectives are to: measure the determinants of resilience; improve farmers’ risk-related decisions and management; assess farm demographic changes and their links to labour markets; evaluate the current policy framework and develop resilience enhancing policy options; make integrated long-term projections of farming system resilience; and identify pathways to implement a resilience enhancing environment.
These objectives are achieved by developing scenarios of stressors, analysing farmers’ risk perceptions and behaviours, developing improved risk management tools tailored to specific challenges in the range of EU farming systems, creating a farm demography assessment tool informed by agent-based modelling that measures dimensions and dynamics of farm structures, creating a novel policy resilience assessment tool to assess strengths and weaknesses of existing CAP and other policies and their national transpositions, and building an integrated impact assessment model to make projections towards sustainable future delivery of private and public goods by farming systems across the EU.
In co-creation with stakeholders, outcomes of these assessments are synthesised to support an enabling environment and to co-design implementation roadmaps. SURE-Farm thereby provides a thorough analysis of the complex challenges to Europe’s agricultural sector and an assessment of relevant policies, building on long-term projections and integrated modelling. By designing novel risk-management tools for farmers, measures to facilitate entry to the sector and validated roadmaps it supports the sector’s resilience.
Contribution of the System Dynamics Group, UiB
The main work of the UiB team is on the integrated assessment of resilience using a variety of modeling tools. Specifically, we develop a simulation model and high level interactive flight simulator that can be used to communicate the main insights gained from the 11 case studies.
Publications
Scientific Articles
- Herrera, H., & Kopainsky, B. (2023). Using microworlds for policymaking in the context of resilient farming systems. Journal of Simulation, 17(5), 607–631. https://doi.org/10.1080/17477778.2022.2083990
- Herrera, H., Schütz, L., Paas, W., Reidsma, P., & Kopainsky, B. (2022). Understanding resilience of farming systems: Insights from system dynamics modelling for an arable farming system in the Netherlands. Ecological Modelling, 464, 109848. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2021.109848
- Meuwissen, M. P. M., Feindt, P. H., Slijper, T., Spiegel, A., Finger, R., De Mey, Y., Paas, W., Termeer, K. J. A. M., Poortvliet, P. M., Peneva, M., Urquhart, J., Vigani, M., Black, J. E., Nicholas-Davies, P., Maye, D., Appel, F., Heinrich, F., Balmann, A., Bijttebier, J., … Herrera, H., Reidsma, P. (2021). Impact of Covid-19 on farming systems in Europe through the lens of resilience thinking. Agricultural Systems, 191, 103152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2021.103152
- Herrera, H., & Kopainsky, B. (2020). A dynamic perspective to farming system resilience and its trade-offs. 173rd EAAE Seminar “Sustainable and resilient farming systems in the European Union." Institute of Agricultural Economics, Romanian Academy Bucharest, Romania. https://doi.org/10.22004/AG.ECON.302646
- Meuwissen, M. P. M., Feindt, P. H., Spiegel, A., Termeer, C. J. A. M., Mathijs, E., Mey, Y. D., Finger, R., Balmann, A., Wauters, E., Urquhart, J., Vigani, M., Zawalińska, K., Herrera, H., Nicholas-Davies, P., Hansson, H., Paas, W., Slijper, T., Coopmans, I., Vroege, W., … Reidsma, P. (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., Paas, W. H., Slijper, T., Coopmans, I., Ciechomska, A., Lievens, E., Deckers, J., Vroege, W., Mathijs, E., Kopainsky, B., Herrera, H., Nitzko, S., Finger, R., de Mey, Y., Poortvliet, P. M., Nicholas-Davies, P., Midmore, P., Vigani, M., Maye, D., ... Reidsma, P. (2018). Report on resilience framework for EU agriculture: Sustainable and resilient EU farming systems (SureFarm) project report, work package D1.1. Wageningen University & Research. https://edepot.wur.nl/443054
People
Project manager
Wageningen University & Research Project Coordinator
Staff involved from System Dynamics Group UiB
Birgit Kopainsky Professor
Hugo Jose Herrera de Leon Postdoctoral Fellow