EU Agricultural Policy

5-State-Evaluation: Effects of farm investment support

Investments in machinery and buildings are crucial for farmers to stay competitive. The state supports such investments through grants. We investigate the effectiveness of these support measures.

5-State-Evaluation: Effects of investment support for agri-food companies

The competitiveness of the agricultural sector depends very much on the processing and marketing of the produce. Therefore, processing and marketing has been supported intensively with public funds since decades. We investigate the effectiveness of this support measure.

Agricultural long-term policies for climate mitigation (AGRILOP)

Agriculture is considered as an essential part of climate change mitigation. The recent Green Deal and the Farm-to-Fork Strategy of the European Union additionally highlight the importance of market-based instruments to alleviate climate change. A quantitative assessment of different instruments is crucial for successful climate policies.

Agricultural policy instruments to support farm level risk management

Both climate change and increasing liberalisation of EU agricultural policy involve the danger of increasing volatility and economic risk at the farm level.

Brightspace

The European Green Deal, aims, among others, to increase the contribution of EU agriculture to climate change action, improve the management of natural resources, ensure a fair economic return for farmers, and reinforce the protection of biodiversity. EU agriculture and food practices are currently not on the right track to meet the Green Deal ambitions and objectives. These objectives are interdependent, and while often aligned, they may also compete. Synergies and trade-offs between socio-economic and environmental outcomes are brought together in the concept of a Safe and Just Operating ...

CatchHedge - Carbon sequestration of hedgerows and field copses

Hedgerows contribute to mitigating climate change - new plantings of hedgerows on arable land have great potential to contribute to climate protection. Hedgerows store nearly as much carbon per hectare as forests.

Conversion and transmission of national farm returns and analyses with regard to FADN

The Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) is a harmonised data base throughout the EU that consists of accounting data from a representative sample of agricultural holdings. Based on this income, structural and production developments can be analysed. The EU Commission uses the FADN extensively to evaluate the impacts of the CAP and to design new policy measures.

Economics of arable crop production

Policy makers very often are faced with the challenge to access the implications of changes in the political, legal or technological framework conditions on arable production. This may for example referr to the ban of individual crop protection products. This project is providing ready-to-use answers to such questions - both on the national as well as on the international level.

Further development of eco-schemes (ÖR+)

Eco-schemes are a key element of the new green architecture of the Common Agricultural Policy to promote more sustainable land management. We develop scientifically grounded decision support tools for their further development.

Further development of the Thünen model network - Farm models

EU agricultural policies as well as international trade policies have changed considerably during the last decades. This has led to an increased demand from policy makers and scientists for model-based quantitative assessments of the consequences of respective policy reforms.

HumusKlimaNetz

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time, which is why agriculture also has a responsibility to become more climate-friendly. One option is to keep soil organic carbon stocks in the soil and increase them if possible. We are investigating the climate impact and economic efficiency of SOC measures on 150 conventional and ecological farms. The HumusKlimaNetz is set up by the German Farmers' Association (DBV) and the Bund Ökologische Lebensmittelwirtschaft (BÖLW).

Impact analysis of EU and national agricultural policies

The next reform is just around the corner - that much is clear to anybody following agricultural policy in Germany and the EU. While some may groan in exasperation, these continuous adjustments reflect the extremely dynamic change of framework conditions and societal expectations that the agricultural sector is faced with.

Impact assessment with the CAPRI model of a plant-based dietary change

Greenhouse Gas Reduction through Innovative Breeding Advances in Alternative Plant Protein Sources

LAMASUS - Modellierung von Landnutzung und -management für eine nachhaltige Steuerung

LAMASUS - LAnd use and MAnagement modelling for SUStainable governance

Modelling of the Common Agricultural Policies post 2027

Agricultural policies are changing and, consequently, the tools to analyse these policies need to be adapted. Therefore, this research projects aims to adjust the European Commission’s IMAP (Integrated modelling platform for agro-economic and resource policy analysis) models, i.e., CAPRI, MAGNET, AGMEMOD, as well as GLOBIOM for future policy impact assessments with a focus on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) after 2027 and their economic, social (including health), environmental and climate sustainability impacts.

Monitoring of organic support policies

Organic farming is supported with public funding in Europe. Which support measures exist and how much funding is available in Germany and in other EU Member States?

On-going evaluation of five RDP in Germany from 2014 to 2020: Effects on animal welfare

In cooperation with the Thünen-Institute of Rural Studies, the Thünen-Institue of International Forestry and Forest Economics and entera, the Thünen-Institute of Farm Economics evaluates the Rural Development Programs (RDP) of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony / Bremen.

OrganicTargets4EU - scenarios for boosting organic farming

The EU’s Farm-to-Fork Strategy set a target of 25% of EU agricultural land to be organic by 2030, or three times the area in 2019. Can this be achieved? If so how, and what are the consequences for farms and food businesses?

Renewable resources - economically analyzed

Politics are supporting renewable resources for the provision of bioenergy or for the material use. However, the question arises whether this is the right way: consumers complain about increasing electricity prices, environmentalists about the ploughing of grassland and farmers about increasing land rents. Therefore, we analyze how the political support of renewable resources can be optimized.

Common Agricultural Policy from the rural point of view: the CAPRI-RD model

Policy measures to promote rural areas like village renewal or promotion of young farmers do not only impact agricultural holdings but also other economic sectors, e.g. tourism, food processing or education. For responsible handling of tax payers’ money, it is important to know if the policy measure is adequately targeted. It is especially challenging to consider the interactions between the different economic sectors, merely because of the great number of different funding programs. The aim of this project is to solve this task and to quantify the impacts of promoting the rural areas.

Distributional effects of CAP liberalisation

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU has a significant influence on farm incomes. But does the CAP reduce income gaps in the agricultural sector? What (unintended) distributional effects would further liberalisation of the European agricultural sector entail?

Establishment of various income source in agriculture: What can be achieved via subsidies?

Impact analysis of public support of income diversification in agricultural holdings in the framework of monitoring and ongoing evaluation of six state programmes for rural development during the years 2007-2013

Evaluation of the EU Organic Regulation

The EU regulation on organic farming defines the legal framework of organic farming in Europe and aims to contribute to a sustainable development of the sector. How effective and relevant are the current rules and where is a need for a change?

Explaining and predicting farm structural change

The EU commission annually develops a projection of the future development in agriculture to detect trends as early as possible. Until now, the structure of farms played only a minor role. A greater consideration of the structure of farms would increase the quality of the projections, particularly after the reorientation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2013. The impact of the “Greening” of the first Pillar is closely related to the productive orientation of a farm – e.g., whether a farm produces as grassland farm rather milk or as arable farm cereals. Main objective of this project ...

Explaining, predicting and linking European farm structural change with the European farm supply model IFM-CAP

Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Reduction Strategies in Germany: Analyses at Farm Level

What contribution can agriculture make to climate protection and what are the costs for the farms when implementing an adaptation strategy? With a model-based analysis conducted with the farm group model FARMIS, we analyse and evaluate the effects of possible greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation strategies.

Model-based analysis of the structural change in agriculture

In the year 2013, the EU agricultural budget was 57 billion €. Most of the payments to farmers were subject to certain conditions to contribute to the protection of climate and environment. To maximise the efficiency of the policy, the impacts of certain policies should be estimated. Economic models are in fact an important contribution. The main objective of this project is to improve and extend our economic models to better estimate the positive and negative impacts on the environment, income of farmers and land use or farm structure.

Modelling farm structural change

The number of farms has declined by 50 % over the last 20 years. There is no end in sight to the rapid structural change.

More beef import from the US to the EU soon?

The USA and Canada are major beef producers and exporters. Given the beef price differential to the EU, both countries have an interest to export beef to the EU.

On-going evaluation of seven RDP in Germany from 2007 to 2013: Effects on animal welfare

In cooperation with the Thünen-Institute of Rural Studies, we evaluate the Rural Development Programs (RDP) of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony / Bremen and Hamburg.

Remuneration for the environmental benefits of organic farming

Lower nitrogen burdens in water courses, reduced resource use, more biodiversity in farmed landscapes – organic farming delivers many benefits for society. But organic farms are not rewarded appropriately for their services. What needs to change?

Support of weather insurances - is this the answer to extreme weather events?

Droughts, floods, hail and heavy rainfalls: extreme weather events can lead to severe damages in the agricultural sector. It is therefore important for farmers to protect themselves against weather damage that could endanger their livelihood.

TRUSTEE Task „Validation of the implementation logic of RD-measures and the Baseline in the CAPRI model“

To quantify the impact of policy measures for rural development, the development of the pan European model „Common Agricultural Policy Regionalised Impact - The Rural Development Dimension“ (CAPRI-RD) was the first important step. During the development process it became clear that measures to promote the rural area can only be modelled successfully, if national experts validate them continuously. In the TRUSTEE project, national experts come together to further continue this procedure.

What are the impacts of the EU rural development programmes on the environment? New methods for environmental evaluation

How can the provision of public goods such as biodiversity be effectively supported through the Common Agricultural Policy? This is one of the core questions in political and scientific debates of the future Common Agricultural Policy in the EU. To be able to answer this question requires the establishment of robust causal linkages between support measures and the desired environmental impacts and consistent methodological frameworks to assess environmental impacts across different scales and levels.