Erwin Wauters

• Senior Researcher at Instituut voor Landbouw en Visserijonderzoek

Many studies point to the social and environmental benefits of agroforestry, also in temperate regions such as Flanders. Nevertheless, farmers do not yet see agroforestry as an equally valuable option alongside other farming systems because of the uncertain economic profitability and the current incompatibility of this system with existing market c...

The adoption of sustainable crop pro- tection practices is needed to meet ambitious targets for reducing the risk of pesticide use. • We provide new insights into farmer decision-making and policy analysis to- wards more sustainable crop protection approaches. • Definitions of adoption need to move from simple adoption metrics to im- pacts, for exa...

De coronacrisis toonde aan hoe belangrijk een veerkrachtig agrovoedingssysteem is. In het voorjaar van 2020 onderzocht het Instituut voor Landbouw-, Visserij- en Voedingsonderzoek (ILVO) de impact van deze crisis op de agrovoedingssector, om de veerkrachtbepalende elementen te identificeren via een enquête onder landbouwbedrijven en dieptegesprekke...

What exactly is resilience and how can it be enhanced? Farming systems in Europe are rapidly evolving while at the same time being under threat, as seen by the disappearance of dozens of farms every day. Farming systems must become more resilient in response to growing economic, environmental, institutional, and social challenges facing Europe's ag...

What exactly is resilience and how can it be enhanced? Farming systems in Europe are rapidly evolving while at the same time being under threat, as seen by the disappearance of dozens of farms every day. Farming systems must become more resilient in response to growing economic, environmental, institutional, and social challenges facing Europe's ag...

What exactly is resilience and how can it be enhanced? Farming systems in Europe are rapidly evolving while at the same time being under threat, as seen by the disappearance of dozens of farms every day. Farming systems must become more resilient in response to growing economic, environmental, institutional, and social challenges facing Europe's ag...

What exactly is resilience and how can it be enhanced? Farming systems in Europe are rapidly evolving while at the same time being under threat, as seen by the disappearance of dozens of farms every day. Farming systems must become more resilient in response to growing economic, environmental, institutional, and social challenges facing Europe's ag...

CONTEXT The ability of a farm to cope with challenges is often conceptualised as resilience. Although improving resilience of farms is a major policy goal in the European Union, the current state of resilience is often unknown. Previous resilience assessments have been based either on pre-defined indicators or on perceptions. In particular, empiric...

Understanding the complex process of generational renewal (GR) in agriculture is essential for supporting the continuation of farming. This paper demonstrates how multiple factors, simultaneously and through their mutual interactions, influence GR and related individual decision-making processes. Results originated from 155 in-depth interviews perf...

Context Resilience is the ability to deal with shocks and stresses, including the unknown and previously unimaginable, such as the Covid-19 crisis. Objective This paper assesses (i) how different farming systems were exposed to the crisis, (ii) which resilience capacities were revealed and (iii) how resilience was enabled or constrained by the far...

Context Resilience represents the ability of systems to anticipate, withstand, or adapt to challenges. Times of great stress and disturbance offer opportunity to identify and confirm key contributors to agri-food system resilience. The COVID-19 pandemic and its related consequences constituted major shock, challenging the resilience of many agri-fo...

en Sufficient generational renewal is an important contributor to resilient farming systems but across the EU there is widespread concern over the so‐called ‘young farmer problem’. This article recommends several policy areas to support generational renewal. The first need is to clearly define the exact generational renewal challenge, since availab...

The resilience of European farms and farming systems has become prominent on the policy agenda, but the definition of resilience tends to be interpreted narrowly as the ability to withstand shocks and maintain the status quo . We argue that resilience encompasses the capacity of farms, farmers and farming systems to anticipate, cope and respond to...

Many farming systems in Europe are struggling to respond to accumulating economic, environmental, institutional and social challenges. From a resilience perspective, they need three distinct capacities to continue delivering products, income and public goods: robustness, adaptability and transformability. Based on a structured assessment of the res...

For improving the sustainability and resilience of EU farming systems, it is important to assess their likely responses to future challenges under future scenarios. We evaluated future resilience in 11 case studies across the EU, using a soft coupling of different qualitative and quantitative approaches. Results from the qualitative approach "FoP...

For improving sustainability and resilience of EU farming system, the current state needs to be assessed, before being able to move on to future scenarios. Assessing sustainability and resilience of farming systems is a multi-faceted research challenge in terms of the scientific domains and scales of integration (farm, household, farming system lev...

Agricultural systems in Europe face accumulating economic, ecological and societal challenges, raising concerns about their resilience to shocks and stresses. These resilience issues need to be addressed with a focus on the regional context in which farming systems operate because farms, farmers' organizations, service suppliers and supply chain ac...

Although precision livestock farming (PLF) technologies ensure various dimensions of more precise information, the question arises to what extent additional preciseness provides more value. Literature gives insufficient anchor points to estimate the value of information (VOI) obtained with PLF technologies. This study proposes a conceptual framewor...

Agriculture Innovation System (AIS) thinking and approaches are largely perceived as a sine-qua-non for the design and implementation of effective and sustainable agriculture development programmes. AIS has gained popularity in the agriculture innovation literature and has been embedded in policy documents of agriculture sector institutions in many...

Farm-household financial interactions (FHFI), the intermingling of business finances with household finances, is a largely uninvestigated phenomenon in Europe. This is partly because of data scarcity as the main farm-level accounting database, the FADN, does not include financial information at the household level. Based on primary survey data from...

This report presents the results of a participatory sustainability and resilience assessment of 11 farming systems in the European Union (EU). The assessment focussed on system functions, applied strategies and resilience attributes. Overall, workshop results revealed a high allocated importance to the functions related to food production and econo...

Public research organizations need to increasingly engage in open innovation processes besides classic collaboration with industry and public-private partnerships. In this study, the effectiveness of an open innovation approach is examined in three bio-economy cases set up by a public research institute, as well as the factors influencing the imple...

This paper focuses on systems producing short rotation coppice willows (SRCW) in chickens’ free-range areas. We aim to map chicken farmers’ motivation to implement SRCW, and to assess the economic viability of these systems. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 free-range chicken farmers. Farmers agreed that chickens would prefer SRCW...

Non-inversion tillage (NIT) is often recommended as a soil conservation measure, protecting soil structure and soil life and preventing erosion. As the adoption of this measure is still below policy targets in many European regions, this study aimed at gaining insights in constraints and drivers of implementing NIT to understand how to stimulate be...

Farm demographics concerns dynamics within the farmers’ population and the provision of labour to farming systems, capturing both labour directly employed by the farmers’ population and hired labour force. This work uses both quantitative and qualitative data to provide an overview of trends in demographic processes of European farming systems over...

A well-functioning swine health system is crucial to ensure a sustainable pig production. Yet, little attention has been paid to understand it. The objective of this study was to unravel the complexity of a swine health system by using a systems-thinking approach for the case of Flanders (Northern part of Belgium). To that end, qualitative intervie...

Monitoring systems (MS) provide additional information that many developers and researchers expect will reduce the uncertainty surrounding decision-making in livestock production and therefore enhance management decisions. However, the actual economic value of the information (VoI) yielded by MS has hardly been investigated. The aim of this study w...

Farming systems in Europe face a vast range of environmental, economic, social and institutional challenges. Examples include more volatile producer and input prices, higher probability of extreme weather events, increasing dependence on land owners and financial institutions, organizational change within value chains, competing policy objectives a...

ABSTRACT The shift to industrial agriculture in Europe brought along a range of environmental and social externalities. This led policy makers, researchers and civil servants to consider and explore the potential of diversified farming systems (DFS) to address current problems in agriculture. However, because of multiple obstacles adoption of these...

Pig farmers are strongly encouraged to reduce their antimicrobial usage in order to reduce the risk of antimicrobial resistance. Herd-level intervention is needed to achieve national and European reduction targets. Alternative, especially preventive measures, have to be implemented to reduce the need for antimicrobial treatments. However, little is...

We investigate farmers’ intentions to apply biodiversity conservation practices from a psychological perspective, using an adapted version of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), including group norms and putting emphasis on moral norms and self-identity. The study is based on a quantitative survey (n = 99) in Belgium, analysed using confirmatory...

Pig veterinarians and other actors in the pig health advisory system play a key role in the delivery of high quality, safe, nutritious and affordable pork for consumers, in the improvement of farms’ performance and in the protection of pigs’ health and welfare. Experts agree that the role of veterinarian in the overall herd health management should...

Pig veterinarians and other actors in the pig health advisory system play a key role in the production of high quality, safe, nutritious and affordable pork for consumers, in the improvement of farms' performance and in the protection of pigs' health and welfare. Experts agree that the role of veterinarian in the overall herd health management shou...

Because of the rising threat from antimicrobial resistance, pig farmers are strongly encouraged to reduce antimicrobial usage. Alternative measures have to be implemented, but little is known about their effectiveness and return on investment. The objective of this study was to assess, across four countries, the technical and economic impact of int...

Understanding motivating factors for taking soil conservation measures is seen as key to improving on-farm implementation. However, to date only few on-farm conservation measures have been investigated. The objective of this paper is to investigate the influence of farmers’ subjective beliefs on their intention to apply and actual implementation of...

The key objective of this study was to develop a methodology to estimate the value of precision dairy farming monitoring systems (PDFMS) prior to implementation and, hence, in a situation of limited data availability. The second objective was to investigate which variables have the highest influence on the value of information (VOI) provided by PDF...

Environmental measures in an agricultural context often lead to extra constraints in current farming. This suggests trade-offs between the environmental objectives and profitability. Whether trade-offs exist, or may be turned into win-win, depends on creative farm options to comply new constraints. This paper concentrates on Ecological Focus Areas...

Conservation Agriculture (CA) has been widely promoted as an agro-ecological approach to sustainable production intensification. Despite numerous initiatives promoting CA across Sub-Saharan Africa there have been low rates of adoption. Furthermore, there has been strong debate concerning the ability of CA to provide benefits to smallholder farmers...

Whereas the opportunities of modern agroforestry systems are increasingly recognized by policy makers, consultants, researchers and educators, the response of farmers to the recent subsidy program for alley cropping systems in Flanders is relatively low. Therefore in this study a mixed method technique including a survey (n = 86), interviews (n = 3...

A quasi-experimental approach was used for assessing the farm-economic impact of substituting the use of antimicrobials by good management practices, namely biosecurity measures. To account for technological progress and to avoid selection bias, propensity score matching was used to estimate the difference-indifference of the technical parameters b...

Empirical evidence on household risk balancing behaviour is presented by estimating a fixed effects seemingly unrelated regression model using Swiss Farm Accountancy Data Network data. We find that in response to changes in expected business risks, Swiss farm households not only make strategic farm financial risk decisions (original risk balancing)...

Purpose – Building on the risk balancing theory and on recent discussions the appropriateness of using farm income maximization as behavioural assumption, this paper extends the risk balancing framework by accounting for business-household interactions. The purpose of this paper is to theoretically introduce the concept of farm household risk balan...

Empirical evidence on household risk balancing behaviour is presented by estimating a fixed effects seemingly unrelated regression model using Swiss Farm Accountancy Data Network data. We find that in response to changes in expected business risks, Swiss farm households not only make strategic farm financial risk decisions (original risk balancing)...

The comprehensive risk analysis of a business such as farming entails questions on what is at stake, how important is the risk concern and how to deal with it. We performed a sequential mixed method, with the in-depth interviews in the first stage (n = 35), followed by a survey on the Flemish FADN (n = 614) in the second, to investigate the farmers...

http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/EQ2FTGQWSkZMd8ntuPzE/full The importance of risk perception and risk attitude for understanding individual’s risk behaviour are independently well described in literature, but rarely combined in an integrated approach. In this study, we propose a model assuming the choice to implement certain risk management strate...

Multifactor productivity growth measures can be constructed using different input–output concepts. We estimate three distinct productivity growth measures respectively based on gross output, value added, and cash flow and discuss their economic interpretation. By making use of an index theory based decomposition model, we deviate from making neo-cl...

Risico-analyse in de landbouw roept vragen op over welke risico’s er van belang zijn en hoe met risico omgegaan kan worden. Op basis van een sequentiële mixed-methode, met diepte-interviews in de eerste fase (n = 35), gevolgd door een enquête bij landbouwers van het LandbouwMonitoringsNetwerk (n = 614) in de tweede, onderzochten we de risicopercept...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present empirical evidence of risk balancing behavior by European farmers. More specifically, the authors investigate strategic adjustments in the level of financial risk (FR) in response to changes in the level of business risk (BR). Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted a correlation relati...

This paper report on a qualitative study into the factors that determine the flexibility of bovine farming systems. Flexibility is defined as the room for change, or the size of the choice set that remains available in the future. Using in-depth interviews in three stages, we identified several factors that leave the farmers with limited scope for...

Many researchers have been investigating factors that influence farmers' adoption of soil conservation practices. This paper presents an exhaustive review of the empirical literature since 1980. It reviews and meta-analyses 69 empirical studies on the adoption of soil conservation practices. The main results prove disappointing for nation-wide poli...

Sustainability in farming practices is of increasing importance in research and society. There has been extensive research on best management practices to mitigate soil degradation. However, invariably the success of practices proposed by scientists and technicians rely on farmers to implement them, ultimately the farmers’ actions will determine th...

Socio-psychological veterinary epidemiology is the study of human behaviour that affects the causes, spread, prevention and control of animal diseases and health problems. This paper reviews the existing literature with two purposes: (1) to draw conclusions and implications for farmers, veterinarians, veterinary and epidemiological researchers, ext...

Purpose: The aim of this article is to present and apply a method to investigate farmers' socio-psychological determinants of conservation practice adoption, as an aid in extension, policy and conservation practice design. Design/methodology/approach: We use a sequential mixed method, starting with qualitative semi-structured interviews (n = 24), t...

Traditionally, agricultural economists employ farm level modeling for a variety of purposes. Central to these modeling techniques is the behavioral assumption of farm profit maximization, or, when risk preferences are put into play (risk aversion), utility maximization. However, there is abundant literature, from different (sub)disciplines such as...

The importance of risk perception and risk attitude for understanding individual's risk behaviour are independently well described in literature, but rarely combined in an integrated approach. In this study, we propose a model assuming the choice to implement certain risk management strategies to be directly driven by both perceptions of risks and...

Productivity growth, generally defined as output quantity change relative to input quantity change, can be constructed from a number of input-output concepts. Aside from the distinction between partial and multifactor productivity (MFP) measures, different levels of output can also be considered. Following the framework by Balk (2010), we consider...

Aanhoudende lage prijzen voor landbouwproducten en toenemende prijzen voor grondstoffen wereldwijd en in België zetten het landbouwinkomen onder druk. Uit een in 1999 verschenen rapport bleek dat 22% van de landbouwers in Vlaanderen moesten rondkomen met een inkomen dat lager was dan het bestaansminimum van 10 000 euro per jaar (Van Hecke et al...

According to common perceptions, questions arise whether risks really increase when farming organically and, if risk indeed increases, whether it is paid for. As basic data are mostly missing, answering these questions needs best managerial estimates and a transparent analysis framework. A Monte Carlo simulation model, using a theoretical "volatili...

The brewery sector worldwide is going through a process of concentration, with a decreasing amount of producers. Horizontal integration, a process in which breweries take over other breweries exists already several decades. Policy intervention sets a limit to the degree of market power a brewery can obtain by taking over competitive breweries. As a...

Since the Brundtland report (WCED, 1987) put sustainable development on the policy agenda, many attempts have been made to put the theoretical concept into practice. This also entailed the need to monitor progress towards sustainability and hence to ‘measure’ it. So, over the last 20 years a wide range of sustainability monitoring tools have bee...

In several countries worldwide, the market structure of the brewery industry is one of a limited and decreasing amount of producers. Such highly concentrated production is most often accompanied by significant market power. Furthermore, a common practice of market behaviour is vertical coordination where firms may decide to combine technologically...

Modeling the farm level impact of risk management programs, policies and instruments is traditionally been done on a farm-level basis. Hence, farm simulation models typically use the behavioural assumption of profit or utility maximization is risk aversion taken into account. However, abundant – albeit indirect – evidence from different literature...

This paper reports on the increased volatility in the milk price received by Flemish dairy farmers and its consequence on the risk profile of selected Flemish dairy farms. The volatility of the milk price has doubled since January 2007. It is suggested that this increasing volatility could have a significant impact on the risk profile of dairy f...

All rights reserved. Readers may make verbatim copies of this document for non-commercial purposes by any means, provided that this copyright notice appears on all such copies. Abstract Although risk management in farming is a well-documented subject in scientific literature, this same literature is usually used only by other scientist and is not a...

In this publication (in Dutch), we investigate the impact of the current higher milk price volatility on dairy farms' risk profile. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we calculate the risk profile of dairy farms under the stable milk price and under the volatile milk price situation. For the latter, we use different expected milk price scenarios. We se...

Risk considerations have become increasingly important in nowadays agriculture, due to a variety of reasons. Surprisingly, the practice of formalized risk management is not widespread despite the huge amount of scientific literature on this topic. This discrepancy between risk science and extension is described by many authors. This paper presents...

Although risk management in farming is a well-documented subject in scientific literature, this same literature is usually used only by other scientist and is not aiding individual farmers in their management. Risk perception and risk attitude are well described determinants of risk behaviour but rarely combined in an integrated approach for risk b...

Survival Analysis method has been commonly used in biology, medical science, and human life insurance studies but it is rarely applied in agricultural insurance research. The main objective of this study is to explore the appropriateness of the Survival Analysis model for the crop insurance program design. Our analysis was mainly focused on the cat...

Soil erosion is a problem with serious on-site and off-site consequences. There exists a broad series of measures to mitigate soil erosion, unfortunately policy makers observe little voluntary adoption. This paper reports on a study to elicit the factors explaining adoption of soil erosion control practices in Belgium. Following a socio-psychologic...

Vandaag komt risico in de landbouw meer dan ooit in beeld: veranderende teeltomstandigheden, schommelende prijzen, een wijzigend beleidskader, …. . Voorliggende ILVO-publicatie is het resultaat van een verkennende voorstudie in het recent opgestarte IWT-onderzoek “bedrijfsgerichte opvolging en analyse van risico in de land- en tuinbouw” (IWT 080508...

Sustainable development and the definition of indicators to assess progress towards sustainability have become a high priority in scientific research and on policy agendas. In this paper, we propose a consistent and comprehensive framework of principles, criteria and indicators (PC&I) for sustainability assessment of agricultural systems, referred...

Soil erosion is a problem with serious off-site and on-site consequences. There exists a broad series of measures to mitigate soil erosion, unfortunately policy makers observe little voluntary adoption. This paper reports on a study to elicit the factors explaining adoption of soil erosion practices in Belgium. Following a socio-psychological appro...

This paper analyzes the economic implications of automatic milking using a standardized simulation analysis in four countries, Belgium, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. To ensure comparability, we used the methodology of the International Farm Comparison Network which is based on a set of typical farms. These typical farms are not average farm...