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Mohr F, Diogo V, Helfenstein J, Debonne N, Dimopoulos T, Dramstad W, García-Martín M, Hernik J, Herzog F, Kizos T, Lausch A, Lehmann L, Levers C, Pazur R, Ruiz-Aragón V, Swart R, Thenail C, Ulfeng H, Verburg PH, Williams T, Zarina A, Bürgi M. Why has farming in Europe changed? A farmers' perspective on the development since the 1960s. Reg Environ Change 2023; 23:156. [PMID: 37970329 PMCID: PMC10640510 DOI: 10.1007/s10113-023-02150-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/07/2023] [Accepted: 10/14/2023] [Indexed: 11/17/2023]
Abstract
Farming in Europe has been the scene of several important socio-economic and environmental developments and crises throughout the last century. Therefore, an understanding of the historical driving forces of farm change helps identifying potentials for navigating future pathways of agricultural development. However, long-term driving forces have so far been studied, e.g. in anecdotal local case studies or in systematic literature reviews, which often lack context dependency. In this study, we bridged local and continental scales by conducting 123 oral history interviews (OHIs) with elderly farmers across 13 study sites in 10 European countries. We applied a driving forces framework to systematically analyse the OHIs. We find that the most prevalent driving forces were the introduction of new technologies, developments in agricultural markets that pushed farmers for farm size enlargement and technological optimisation, agricultural policies, but also cultural aspects such as cooperation and intergenerational arrangements. However, we find considerable heterogeneity in the specific influence of individual driving forces across the study sites, implying that generic assumptions about the dynamics and impacts of European agricultural change drivers hold limited explanatory power on the local scale. Our results suggest that site-specific factors and their historical development will need to be considered when addressing the future of agriculture in Europe in a scientific or policy context. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10113-023-02150-y.
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Affiliation(s)
- Franziska Mohr
- Land Change Science Research Unit, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
- Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Vasco Diogo
- Land Change Science Research Unit, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
| | - Julian Helfenstein
- Agroecology and Environment, Agroscope, Zurich, Switzerland
- Soil Geography and Landscape Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - Niels Debonne
- Environmental Geography Group, Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Thymios Dimopoulos
- Mediterranean Institute for Nature and Anthropos, MedINA, Athens, Greece
| | - Wenche Dramstad
- NIBIO: Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, Ås, Norway
| | - Maria García-Martín
- Land Change Science Research Unit, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
| | - Józef Hernik
- Department of Land Management and Landscape Architecture, University of Agriculture in Krakow, Krakow, Poland
| | - Felix Herzog
- Agroecology and Environment, Agroscope, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Thanasis Kizos
- Department of Geography, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece
| | - Angela Lausch
- Department Computational Landscape Ecology, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Leipzig, Germany
- Geography Department, Humboldt University Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Livia Lehmann
- Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Christian Levers
- Environmental Geography Group, Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Thünen Institute of Biodiversity, Johann Heinrich von Thünen Institute – Federal Research Institute for Rural Areas, Forestry, and Fisheries, Brunswick, Germany
| | - Robert Pazur
- Land Change Science Research Unit, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
- Institute of Geography, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia
| | | | - Rebecca Swart
- Environmental Geography Group, Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Claudine Thenail
- Biodiversity, Agroecology and Landscape Management Lab (UMR BAGAP), National Research Institute for Agriculture (INRAe), Rennes, 35042 France
| | - Hege Ulfeng
- NIBIO: Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, Ås, Norway
| | - Peter H. Verburg
- Land Change Science Research Unit, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
- Environmental Geography Group, Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Tim Williams
- Environmental Geography Group, Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Anita Zarina
- Department of Geography, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia
| | - Matthias Bürgi
- Land Change Science Research Unit, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
- Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
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Helfenstein J, Bürgi M, Debonne N, Dimopoulos T, Diogo V, Dramstad W, Edlinger A, Garcia-Martin M, Hernik J, Kizos T, Lausch A, Levers C, Mohr F, Moreno G, Pazur R, Siegrist M, Swart R, Thenail C, Verburg PH, Williams TG, Zarina A, Herzog F. Farmer surveys in Europe suggest that specialized, intensive farms were more likely to perceive negative impacts from COVID-19. Agron Sustain Dev 2022; 42:84. [PMID: 36017120 PMCID: PMC9397162 DOI: 10.1007/s13593-022-00820-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 08/04/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
UNLABELLED It has been shown that the COVID-19 pandemic affected some agricultural systems more than others, and even within geographic regions, not all farms were affected to the same extent. To build resilience of agricultural systems to future shocks, it is key to understand which farms were affected and why. In this study, we examined farmers' perceived robustness to COVID-19, a key resilience capacity. We conducted standardized farmer interviews (n = 257) in 15 case study areas across Europe, covering a large range of socio-ecological contexts and farm types. Interviews targeted perceived livelihood impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on productivity, sales, price, labor availability, and supply chains in 2020, as well as farm(er) characteristics and farm management. Our study corroborates earlier evidence that most farms were not or only slightly affected by the first wave(s) of the pandemic in 2020, and that impacts varied widely by study region. However, a significant minority of farmers across Europe reported that the pandemic was "the worst crisis in a lifetime" (3%) or "the worst crisis in a decade" (7%). Statistical analysis showed that more specialized and intensive farms were more likely to have perceived negative impacts. From a societal perspective, this suggests that highly specialized, intensive farms face higher vulnerability to shocks that affect regional to global supply chains. Supporting farmers in the diversification of their production systems while decreasing dependence on service suppliers and supply chain actors may increase their robustness to future disruptions. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13593-022-00820-5.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Matthias Bürgi
- Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- Land Change Science Research Unit, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
| | - Niels Debonne
- Environmental Geography Group, Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Thymios Dimopoulos
- Mediterranean Institute for Nature and Anthropos, MedINA, Athens, Greece
| | - Vasco Diogo
- Land Change Science Research Unit, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
| | - Wenche Dramstad
- Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO), Ås, Norway
| | - Anna Edlinger
- Agroecology and Environment, Agroscope, Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Maria Garcia-Martin
- Land Change Science Research Unit, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
| | - Józef Hernik
- Department of Land management and Landscape Architecture, University of Agriculture in Krakow, Krakow, Poland
| | - Thanasis Kizos
- Department of Geography, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece
| | - Angela Lausch
- Department Computational Landscape Ecology, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Leipzig, Germany
- Geography Department, Humboldt University Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Christian Levers
- Environmental Geography Group, Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Franziska Mohr
- Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- Land Change Science Research Unit, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
| | - Gerardo Moreno
- Forest Research Group, University of Extremadura, Plasencia, Spain
| | - Robert Pazur
- Land Change Science Research Unit, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
- Institute of Geography, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia
| | - Michael Siegrist
- Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Rebecca Swart
- Environmental Geography Group, Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | | | - Peter H. Verburg
- Land Change Science Research Unit, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
- Environmental Geography Group, Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Tim G Williams
- Environmental Geography Group, Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Anita Zarina
- Department of Geography, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia
| | - Felix Herzog
- Agroecology and Environment, Agroscope, Zürich, Switzerland
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