Uptake of ecological farming practices by EU farms - A pan-European typology

Understanding and measuring the sustainability of farms is key to evaluating progress towards policy goals for a more sustainable agriculture. In the LIFT project, a farm typology was developed to classify farms according to their ecological performance, based on farm-level variables from the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). Selected variables are used to assess three key ecological dimensions of farming: total input intensity; degree of circularity (reliance on own-produced versus external inputs); and avoidance of the use of specific inputs of concern for the environment and consumers. The combination of these aspects is considered as a measure of the farm proximity to a full agroecological approach. The typology allows comparison of farms across farm types, countries and years. We briefly present the method and discuss two key aspects: 1) how the proposed farm typology can inform policymaking in the context of a new EU policy framework; 2) how it can inform the foreseen transformation of the FADN into a Farm Sustainability Data Network (FSDN). We suggest that the use of a typology approach under the new FSDN provides useful information on the impacts of the implementation of agroecological practices with an acceptable additional effort in terms of data collection.

REGA Carlo;  THOMPSON Bethan;  NIEDERMAYR Andreas;  DESJEUX Yann;  KANTELHARDT Jochen;  D'ALBERTO Riccardo;  GOUTA Penelope;  KONSTANTIDELLI Vasilia;  SCHALLER Lena;  LATRUFFE Laure;  PARACCHINI Maria-Luisa; 

2023-10-12

WILEY-BLACKWELL

JRC130406

1746-692X (online),    1478-0917 (print),   

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1746-692X.12368,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC130406,   

10.1111/1746-692X.12368 (online),