SURE-Farm

The SURE-Farm project

Towards SUstainable and REsilient EU FARMing systems (SURE-Farm)”. Concerns exist about the viability of EU farming systems. In this four-year project we aim to design concrete pathways to improve the resilience of farming systems. The project addresses determinants of resilience, potential improvements of risk management strategies, drivers of farm demographics, and strengths and weaknesses of the existing policy framework. Expected impacts are assessed with regard to the delivery of private and public goods. SURE-Farm is led by Wageningen University & Research. In total, the consortium includes 16 partners (13 countries) and has a strong transdisciplinary approach with active roles for e.g. upstream and downstream value chain actors and insurance companies.

Work package on Risk Management

The AECP group is leading a work package related to risk management in European agriculture. The goal of the work package is to comprehensively understand farmers’ risk behaviour and risk management decisions and develop and test a set of effective and usable risk management strategies and decision support tools that farmers can use to cope with increasing economic, environmental and social uncertainties/risks, including meso/macro level public-private solutions dealing with extreme weather events. In total, 11 case study regions in Europe are addressed.

AECP Research on New strategies for extreme weather

Next to leading this work package, the AECP group also contributes a research project (project for a PhD student). In the task ‘New strategies for extreme weather’ we aim to improve existing and develop novel private and public-private tools that are tailored to address the reduction of downside risks and mitigate the effects of extreme weather events on income. We focus on two tools that have potential to be both efficient and able to overcome the asymmetric information problems of traditional insurance approaches: (1) weather index insurance (WII) and (2) the use of remote sensing data to design insurance. Different case studies in European crop and livestock production will be employed.  

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Publications

Vroege. W., Bucheli, J., Dalhaus, T., Hirschi, M., Finger, R. (2021). Insuring crops from space: The potential of satellite retrieved soil moisture to reduce farmers’ drought risk exposure. European Review of Agricultural Economics 48(2) 266–314 external page>>call_made

Vroege, W., Vrieling, A., Finger, R. (2021). Satellite support to insure farmers against extreme droughts. Nature Food 2, 215–217 external page>>call_made

Bucheli, J., Dalhaus, T., Finger, R. (2020) The optimal drought index for designing weather index insurance. European Review of Agricultural Economics. external page>>call_made  

Meuwissen, M.P.M., Feindt, P.H., Spiegel, Al., Termeer, C.J.A.M, Mathijs, E., de Mey, Y., Finger, R., Balmann, A., Wauters, E., Urquhart, J., Viagini, M., Zawalińska, K., Herrera, H., Nicholas-Davies, P., Hansson, H., Paas, W., Slijper, T., Coopmans, I., Vroege, W., Ciechomska, A., Accatino, F., Kopainsky, B., Poortvliet, P.M., Candel, J.J.L., Maye, D., Severini, S., Senni, S., Soriano, B., Lagerkvist, C.J., Peneva, M., Gavrilescu, C., Reidsma, P. (2019) A framework to assess the resilience of farming systems. Agricultural Systems 176: 102656 external page>>call_made

Vroege, W., Dalhaus, T., Finger, R. (2019). Index insurances for grasslands – A review for Europe and North-America Agricultural Systems external page>>call_made

Vroege, W., Finger, R. (2020) Insuring Weather Risks in European Agriculture. EuroChoices 19(2): 54-62 external page>>call_made

Bozzola, M., Finger, R. (2020). Stability of risk attitude, agricultural policies and production shocks: evidence from Italy. European Review of Agricultural Economics. external page>>call_made  

Finger, R., Vroege, W., Spiegel, A., de Mey, Y., Slijper, T., Poortvliet, P. M., Urquhart, J., Vigani, M., Nicholas-Davies, P., Soriano, B., Garrido, A., Severini, S. and Meuwissen, M. P. M. (2022) “The Importance of Improving and Enlarging the Scope of Risk Management to Enhance Resilience in European Agriculture,” In Meuwissen, M. M. P., Feindt, P. H., Garrido, A., Mathijs, E., Soriano, B., Urquhart, J., and Spiegel, A. (eds.), Resilient and Sustainable Farming Systems in Europe: Exploring Diversity and Pathways, chapter, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 18–37. external page>>call_made

Feindt, P. H., Meuwissen, M. P. M., Balmann, A., Finger, R., Mathijs, E., Paas, W., Soriano, B., Spiegel, A., Urquhart, J. and Reidsma, P. (2022) “Understanding and Addressing the Resilience Crisis of Europe’s Farming Systems: A Synthesis of the Findings from the SURE-Farm Project,” In Meuwissen, M. M. P., Feindt, P. H., Garrido, A., Mathijs, E., Soriano, B., Urquhart, J., and Spiegel, A. (eds.), Resilient and Sustainable Farming Systems in Europe: Exploring Diversity and Pathways, chapter, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 342–374. external page>>call_made

Spiegel, A., Slijper, T. , Finger, R. , de Mey, Y. , Meuwissen, M., Poortvliet, P.M., Rommel, J., Hansson, H. , Vigani, M., ,Soriano, B., Wauters, E., Appel, F., Antonioli, F., Gavrilescu, C., Gradziuk, P. , Finger, R., Feindt, P. (2021). Resilience capacities as perceived by European farmers. Agricultural Systems 193 103224 external page>>call_made

Meuwissen, M., Feindt, P., Midmore, P., Wauters, E., Finger, R., Appel, F., Spiegel, A., Mathijs, E., Termeer, K., Balmann, A., de Mey, Y., Reidsma, P. (2020). The Struggle of Farming Systems in Europe: Looking for Explanations through the Lens of Resilience. EuroChoices 19(2): 4-11 external page>>call_made

Blog contributions

Bucheli et al. (2020). external pageOptimale Dürreindikatoren für wetterbasierte Indexversicherungencall_made

Vroege et al. (2018) external pageGrasland gegen Dürre versicherncall_made

Finger & Vroge (2019) external pageResilienz landwirtschaftlicher Systemecall_made

Spiegel et al. (2021) external pageWie nehmen europäische Landwirte die Resilienz ihrer Betriebe wahr?call_made

Finger & Vroege (2021): external pageDen Acker aus dem Weltall versicherncall_made

Bozzola & Finger (2020): external pageLa stabilità nell tempo dell'avversione al rischio: esempi dal settore cereagricolo Italianocall_made

Vroege et al. (2021): external pageInsuring crops for space: Das Potential satellitengestützter Bodenfeuchteinformationen für Agrarversicherungencall_made

Other

Website external pageSURE-Farm Projectcall_made

Policy Brief external pagePDFcall_made

Contact

Contact AECP Group, ETH Zurich: Prof. Dr. Robert Finger (), Willemijn Vroege ()  

Contact SURE-Farm consortium: Miranda Meuwissen, Wageningen University & Research ()

Funding Period: 2017-2021

Funding: Horizon 2020 (European Commission)