Summary Consumer trust in the modern food system is essential given its complexity. Contexts vary... more Summary Consumer trust in the modern food system is essential given its complexity. Contexts vary across countries with regard to food incidents, regulation and systems. It is therefore of interest to compare how key actors in different countries might approach (re)building consumer trust in the food system; and particularly relevant to understanding how food systems in different regions might learn from one another. The purpose of this paper is to explore differences between strategies for (re)building trust in food systems, as identified in two separate empirical studies, one conducted in Australia, New Zealand and the UK (Study 1) and another on the Island of Ireland (Study 2). Interviews were conducted with media, food industry and food regulatory actors across the two studies (n = 105 Study 1; n = 50 Study 2). Data were coded into strategy statements, strategies describing actions to (re)build consumer trust. Strategy statements were compared between Studies 1 and 2 and similar...
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to compare the perspectives of actors who contribute to trus... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to compare the perspectives of actors who contribute to trust in the food system in four high income countries which have diverse food incident histories: Australia, New Zealand (NZ), the United Kingdom (UK) and the Island of Ireland (IOI), focussing on their communication with the public, and their approach to food system interrelationships. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected in two separate studies: the first in Australia, NZ and the UK (Study 1); and the second on the IOI (Study 2). In-depth interviews were conducted with media, food industry and food regulatory actors across the four regions (n=105, Study 1; n=50, Study 2). Analysis focussed on identifying similarities and differences in the perspectives of actors from the four regions regarding the key themes of communication with the public, and relationships between media, industry and regulators. Findings While there were many similarities in the way food system actors from t...
The agricultural sector has a strong role to play in achieving the goal of \u27Sustainable growth... more The agricultural sector has a strong role to play in achieving the goal of \u27Sustainable growth: promoting a more resource efficient, greener and more competitive economy\u27 listed in the Europe 2020 strategy. From a policy perspective, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is likely to be a driver of sustainability as it has progressively introduced more environmental and social concerns within the various CAP reforms. In this context, we provide here a review of sustainable indicators for agriculture. Not only do we review the international literature, but we also provide a synthesis of several national initiatives of farm sustainability assessment in the nine partner countries of the FLINT project: Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain. Although no consensus has yet been reached in terms of the operational meaning of sustainability, we consider here that sustainable development aims at preserving or enlarging our capital stock wh...
The 2019 International Phosphorous Workshop 9 (IPW9), Zurich, Switzerland, 8-12 July 2019Agricult... more The 2019 International Phosphorous Workshop 9 (IPW9), Zurich, Switzerland, 8-12 July 2019Agriculture faces the challenge of achieving sustainable, profitable production while maintaining environmental quality. Conventional agricultural production is highly dependent on nutrient inputs of P and N in fertilizer and feed and poor use efficiency of these resources is associated with losses to the environment and impacts on water quality, GHG emissions, air quality, acidification and biodiversity. The AgriBenchmark project explored the possibilities for benchmarking of nutrient management performance on Irish farms.Environmental Protection AgencyWas published in a book of abstracts but this was not a formal publication just an online collection so did not include in record - A
Resource use efficiency is at the core of sustainable farming practices for the future of agricul... more Resource use efficiency is at the core of sustainable farming practices for the future of agriculture. Given the abolition of quotas in the EU and the increasing demands for food globally food producers are faced with a challenge to increase production in an environmentally sustainable manner. This paper examines the adoption of a suite of grassland management practices by Irish dairy farmers which are proven to improved grass utilisation. The Technology Acceptance Model is applied to a nationally representative sample of specialist Irish dairy farmers to investigate the use of belief based variables and traditional socio-economic and demographic variables in predicting intention to use six grassland management practices.
Given the continual evolution of the CAP and the current reform that is ongoing , it is now both ... more Given the continual evolution of the CAP and the current reform that is ongoing , it is now both timely and relevant to take stock of current evaluation practices and specifically focus on which indicators that are or can be employed to aid our understanding of the relative success of policy targeting. This is the means by which "to obtain an in-depth picture of the impact of the CAP at farm level", in order "to better align the [CAP post-2013] policy to the objectives and targets of the Europe 2020 Framework". Two precise examples are given in the tender specification document-innovation and resource efficiency-but the list by extension also covers agricultural (economic) viability and environmental sustainability. The logical platform from which to develop the suite of indicators, as proposed in FLINT, is the EU Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN), which is the existing data infrastructure for the CAP. FLINT will first consider existing policy measures and acc...
(...)Work Package 2 has as an objective to reveal the perceptions of stakeholders concerning each... more (...)Work Package 2 has as an objective to reveal the perceptions of stakeholders concerning each topic of the indicators selected during WP11 based on their experiences, interests and context on sustainability measurement practices. As part of the stakeholders’ analysis, 174 persons were consulted about their perceptions toward sustainability and sustanability indicators. This document presents the results of the stakeholders’ analysis carried out throughout by group discussions and interviews.(...)
LUWQ 2019: International Interdisciplinary Conference on Land Use and Water Quality. Agriculture ... more LUWQ 2019: International Interdisciplinary Conference on Land Use and Water Quality. Agriculture and the Environment. Aarhus, Denmark, 3-6 June 2019
The 91st Annual Conference of the Agricultural Economics Society, Royal Dublin Society, Dublin, I... more The 91st Annual Conference of the Agricultural Economics Society, Royal Dublin Society, Dublin, Ireland, 24-26 2017
In this report, recommendations are made for the FLINT project in view of selecting indicators th... more In this report, recommendations are made for the FLINT project in view of selecting indicators that can facilitate policy analysis, in terms of indicator design, involvement of stakeholders and in particular, convincing farmers and authorities of the benefits of data collection and the dissemination of results.
Paradoxically, high rates of soil testing by Irish dairy farmers coexist with declining national ... more Paradoxically, high rates of soil testing by Irish dairy farmers coexist with declining national soil fertility levels. This study investigates the anomaly further through identifying the characteristics of farms and farmers who regularly test soil in terms of policy, education, financial capacity, networks, and landmanagement practices. The study draws on data from a nationally representative sample of 231 specialist Irish dairy holdings. As policy mandates the use of soil tests for some farmers, a sub-sample of nonmandated farms is analysed separately. Findings comparing testers and non-testers show all farmers testing their soil on a regular basis are younger, have larger farms and herds, have larger gross output, have greater expenditure on nitrogen, and are more profitable, compared to farmers who do not. The analysis also shows nationally there is no significant difference in fertilizer and concentrate expenditure per hectare between soil test users and non-users, also reflect...
et al., Establishing nationally representative benchmarks of farm-gate nitrogen and phosphorus ba... more et al., Establishing nationally representative benchmarks of farm-gate nitrogen and phosphorus balances and use efficiencies on Irish farms to encourage improvements,
The EU follows the broad aim to develop viable food production systems, through supporting the su... more The EU follows the broad aim to develop viable food production systems, through supporting the sustainable management of natural resources and climate action and to strive for more balanced territorial development. These core values are reflected in the changing Common Agricultural Policy. This policy is one of the key drivers of agricultural practice across the EU, as it has become more oriented towards the concepts of sustainability in recent years. The EU operates a farm-level monitoring system, the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN), which acts as a check to establish if such successful change is being achieved, currently the primary focus is on the economic dimension of sustainability. We argue that to complement existing monitoring tools, cost-effective measurement of indicators for other sustainability dimensions at the farm scale is required. This article explores to what extent EU agricultural beneficiaries data as collected under the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) can be a complementary source of information for this task. To this end, candidate indicators for the environmental dimension from available studies were reviewed and it was assessed whether the data requirements for the indicators could be met through IACS data. The identified five environmental indicators were produced from an IACS data set from Germany. The indicator data was quantitatively analysed and compared with target values reported in the literature, and interpreted with regard to meaningfulness and possible improvements. Our results show that IACS data is indeed a potential source for farm level indicators for the environmental dimension, primarily with regard to landscape diversity (landscape features, parcel size) and the diversity of crop production. The spatial nature of IACS allows for a link to other environmental data and to agroecosystem models which may provide additional indicators, e.g. nutrient balances. However, important information on management of field operations and livestock herds is still insufficient in both FADN and IACS.
Policy reform of the CAP and society's expectations of agriculture have resulted in a growing nee... more Policy reform of the CAP and society's expectations of agriculture have resulted in a growing need for improved information on the effectiveness of policy in achieving high-level objectives for more sustainable practice in agriculture. This is a high priority given its importance for consumers, public policy and private industry. Data collection programmes will need to adapt their scope if their information is to adequately address new information needs about high-level objectives. Assessment of sustainability at the farm level is hindered by the lack of data with which to derive appropriate, meaningful, and relevant indicators. This is particularly problematic for assessment of agricultural sustainability across the European Union (EU). Various databases exist at the EU scale regarding agricultural data sources and we identify one of these, the EU Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN), as having considerable potential to assess farm-level sustainability at EU level. We critique several examples of published work that has attempted to assess agricultural sustainability using: FADN data alone; FADN data in combination with data from supplementary surveys, and; FADN data in combination with data from other EU databases. We conclude that the FADN would need to broaden its scope of data collection if it is to address the new information needs of policy, and we discuss the challenges in expanding FADN with a view towards wider farm-level assessment of sustainability. These include careful selection of indicators based on various criteria, the representativeness of the FADN, and the need to include new themes to address environmental, social, and animal welfare effects of policy.
Typology of indicators based on the three sustainability pillars Environmental pillar Lebacq et a... more Typology of indicators based on the three sustainability pillars Environmental pillar Lebacq et al. (2013) grouped environmental indicators found in the literature into ten environmental themes/topics that focus either on discernible physical aspects of the
Summary Consumer trust in the modern food system is essential given its complexity. Contexts vary... more Summary Consumer trust in the modern food system is essential given its complexity. Contexts vary across countries with regard to food incidents, regulation and systems. It is therefore of interest to compare how key actors in different countries might approach (re)building consumer trust in the food system; and particularly relevant to understanding how food systems in different regions might learn from one another. The purpose of this paper is to explore differences between strategies for (re)building trust in food systems, as identified in two separate empirical studies, one conducted in Australia, New Zealand and the UK (Study 1) and another on the Island of Ireland (Study 2). Interviews were conducted with media, food industry and food regulatory actors across the two studies (n = 105 Study 1; n = 50 Study 2). Data were coded into strategy statements, strategies describing actions to (re)build consumer trust. Strategy statements were compared between Studies 1 and 2 and similar...
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to compare the perspectives of actors who contribute to trus... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to compare the perspectives of actors who contribute to trust in the food system in four high income countries which have diverse food incident histories: Australia, New Zealand (NZ), the United Kingdom (UK) and the Island of Ireland (IOI), focussing on their communication with the public, and their approach to food system interrelationships. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected in two separate studies: the first in Australia, NZ and the UK (Study 1); and the second on the IOI (Study 2). In-depth interviews were conducted with media, food industry and food regulatory actors across the four regions (n=105, Study 1; n=50, Study 2). Analysis focussed on identifying similarities and differences in the perspectives of actors from the four regions regarding the key themes of communication with the public, and relationships between media, industry and regulators. Findings While there were many similarities in the way food system actors from t...
The agricultural sector has a strong role to play in achieving the goal of \u27Sustainable growth... more The agricultural sector has a strong role to play in achieving the goal of \u27Sustainable growth: promoting a more resource efficient, greener and more competitive economy\u27 listed in the Europe 2020 strategy. From a policy perspective, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is likely to be a driver of sustainability as it has progressively introduced more environmental and social concerns within the various CAP reforms. In this context, we provide here a review of sustainable indicators for agriculture. Not only do we review the international literature, but we also provide a synthesis of several national initiatives of farm sustainability assessment in the nine partner countries of the FLINT project: Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain. Although no consensus has yet been reached in terms of the operational meaning of sustainability, we consider here that sustainable development aims at preserving or enlarging our capital stock wh...
The 2019 International Phosphorous Workshop 9 (IPW9), Zurich, Switzerland, 8-12 July 2019Agricult... more The 2019 International Phosphorous Workshop 9 (IPW9), Zurich, Switzerland, 8-12 July 2019Agriculture faces the challenge of achieving sustainable, profitable production while maintaining environmental quality. Conventional agricultural production is highly dependent on nutrient inputs of P and N in fertilizer and feed and poor use efficiency of these resources is associated with losses to the environment and impacts on water quality, GHG emissions, air quality, acidification and biodiversity. The AgriBenchmark project explored the possibilities for benchmarking of nutrient management performance on Irish farms.Environmental Protection AgencyWas published in a book of abstracts but this was not a formal publication just an online collection so did not include in record - A
Resource use efficiency is at the core of sustainable farming practices for the future of agricul... more Resource use efficiency is at the core of sustainable farming practices for the future of agriculture. Given the abolition of quotas in the EU and the increasing demands for food globally food producers are faced with a challenge to increase production in an environmentally sustainable manner. This paper examines the adoption of a suite of grassland management practices by Irish dairy farmers which are proven to improved grass utilisation. The Technology Acceptance Model is applied to a nationally representative sample of specialist Irish dairy farmers to investigate the use of belief based variables and traditional socio-economic and demographic variables in predicting intention to use six grassland management practices.
Given the continual evolution of the CAP and the current reform that is ongoing , it is now both ... more Given the continual evolution of the CAP and the current reform that is ongoing , it is now both timely and relevant to take stock of current evaluation practices and specifically focus on which indicators that are or can be employed to aid our understanding of the relative success of policy targeting. This is the means by which "to obtain an in-depth picture of the impact of the CAP at farm level", in order "to better align the [CAP post-2013] policy to the objectives and targets of the Europe 2020 Framework". Two precise examples are given in the tender specification document-innovation and resource efficiency-but the list by extension also covers agricultural (economic) viability and environmental sustainability. The logical platform from which to develop the suite of indicators, as proposed in FLINT, is the EU Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN), which is the existing data infrastructure for the CAP. FLINT will first consider existing policy measures and acc...
(...)Work Package 2 has as an objective to reveal the perceptions of stakeholders concerning each... more (...)Work Package 2 has as an objective to reveal the perceptions of stakeholders concerning each topic of the indicators selected during WP11 based on their experiences, interests and context on sustainability measurement practices. As part of the stakeholders’ analysis, 174 persons were consulted about their perceptions toward sustainability and sustanability indicators. This document presents the results of the stakeholders’ analysis carried out throughout by group discussions and interviews.(...)
LUWQ 2019: International Interdisciplinary Conference on Land Use and Water Quality. Agriculture ... more LUWQ 2019: International Interdisciplinary Conference on Land Use and Water Quality. Agriculture and the Environment. Aarhus, Denmark, 3-6 June 2019
The 91st Annual Conference of the Agricultural Economics Society, Royal Dublin Society, Dublin, I... more The 91st Annual Conference of the Agricultural Economics Society, Royal Dublin Society, Dublin, Ireland, 24-26 2017
In this report, recommendations are made for the FLINT project in view of selecting indicators th... more In this report, recommendations are made for the FLINT project in view of selecting indicators that can facilitate policy analysis, in terms of indicator design, involvement of stakeholders and in particular, convincing farmers and authorities of the benefits of data collection and the dissemination of results.
Paradoxically, high rates of soil testing by Irish dairy farmers coexist with declining national ... more Paradoxically, high rates of soil testing by Irish dairy farmers coexist with declining national soil fertility levels. This study investigates the anomaly further through identifying the characteristics of farms and farmers who regularly test soil in terms of policy, education, financial capacity, networks, and landmanagement practices. The study draws on data from a nationally representative sample of 231 specialist Irish dairy holdings. As policy mandates the use of soil tests for some farmers, a sub-sample of nonmandated farms is analysed separately. Findings comparing testers and non-testers show all farmers testing their soil on a regular basis are younger, have larger farms and herds, have larger gross output, have greater expenditure on nitrogen, and are more profitable, compared to farmers who do not. The analysis also shows nationally there is no significant difference in fertilizer and concentrate expenditure per hectare between soil test users and non-users, also reflect...
et al., Establishing nationally representative benchmarks of farm-gate nitrogen and phosphorus ba... more et al., Establishing nationally representative benchmarks of farm-gate nitrogen and phosphorus balances and use efficiencies on Irish farms to encourage improvements,
The EU follows the broad aim to develop viable food production systems, through supporting the su... more The EU follows the broad aim to develop viable food production systems, through supporting the sustainable management of natural resources and climate action and to strive for more balanced territorial development. These core values are reflected in the changing Common Agricultural Policy. This policy is one of the key drivers of agricultural practice across the EU, as it has become more oriented towards the concepts of sustainability in recent years. The EU operates a farm-level monitoring system, the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN), which acts as a check to establish if such successful change is being achieved, currently the primary focus is on the economic dimension of sustainability. We argue that to complement existing monitoring tools, cost-effective measurement of indicators for other sustainability dimensions at the farm scale is required. This article explores to what extent EU agricultural beneficiaries data as collected under the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) can be a complementary source of information for this task. To this end, candidate indicators for the environmental dimension from available studies were reviewed and it was assessed whether the data requirements for the indicators could be met through IACS data. The identified five environmental indicators were produced from an IACS data set from Germany. The indicator data was quantitatively analysed and compared with target values reported in the literature, and interpreted with regard to meaningfulness and possible improvements. Our results show that IACS data is indeed a potential source for farm level indicators for the environmental dimension, primarily with regard to landscape diversity (landscape features, parcel size) and the diversity of crop production. The spatial nature of IACS allows for a link to other environmental data and to agroecosystem models which may provide additional indicators, e.g. nutrient balances. However, important information on management of field operations and livestock herds is still insufficient in both FADN and IACS.
Policy reform of the CAP and society's expectations of agriculture have resulted in a growing nee... more Policy reform of the CAP and society's expectations of agriculture have resulted in a growing need for improved information on the effectiveness of policy in achieving high-level objectives for more sustainable practice in agriculture. This is a high priority given its importance for consumers, public policy and private industry. Data collection programmes will need to adapt their scope if their information is to adequately address new information needs about high-level objectives. Assessment of sustainability at the farm level is hindered by the lack of data with which to derive appropriate, meaningful, and relevant indicators. This is particularly problematic for assessment of agricultural sustainability across the European Union (EU). Various databases exist at the EU scale regarding agricultural data sources and we identify one of these, the EU Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN), as having considerable potential to assess farm-level sustainability at EU level. We critique several examples of published work that has attempted to assess agricultural sustainability using: FADN data alone; FADN data in combination with data from supplementary surveys, and; FADN data in combination with data from other EU databases. We conclude that the FADN would need to broaden its scope of data collection if it is to address the new information needs of policy, and we discuss the challenges in expanding FADN with a view towards wider farm-level assessment of sustainability. These include careful selection of indicators based on various criteria, the representativeness of the FADN, and the need to include new themes to address environmental, social, and animal welfare effects of policy.
Typology of indicators based on the three sustainability pillars Environmental pillar Lebacq et a... more Typology of indicators based on the three sustainability pillars Environmental pillar Lebacq et al. (2013) grouped environmental indicators found in the literature into ten environmental themes/topics that focus either on discernible physical aspects of the
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