The impacts of agricultural, environmental and climate change policies in Europe are investigated using the CAPRI (Common Agricultural Policy Regionalised Impact) model. Although the model runs at a regional level, primarily NUTS2, the underlying data have been spatially disaggregated to finer scale units called 'Farm Structure Units'. In this study we present these spatially disaggregated layers of agri-environmental variables for a time series from 2000 to 2018. This harmonized and spatially consistent data set includes crop types (area, yield), livestock types (totals and densities) and various parameters associated with nitrogen application and losses. These data can be used to calculate nitrogen budgets as well as providing inputs to biogeochemical or land management models.

Biodiversity conservation policies often face resistance, yet the global agri-food system's vulnerability to ecosystem service declines, such as wild pollinator losses, remains poorly understood. Wild pollinators are vital for sustaining crop yields, especially nutrient-rich crops. Declines in their populations could disrupt food production, trade, and global food security. Here, we show that a hypothetical collapse of wild pollinators in Europe by 2030 would reduce European crop yields by 8%, trigger modest cropland expansion, and diminish net exports. Although global market adjustments, through changes in land use and trade, would partially mitigate these impacts, they risk exacerbating food insecurity and undermining biodiversity conservation efforts globally. Prices for pollinator-dependent crops would rise globally, with Europe seeing the steepest increases. While producers may benefit from higher prices, consumers bear the brunt. Global annual welfare losses would reach €34 billion in 2030, with Europe and the EU accounting for €24 billion and €12 billion, disproportionately impacting EU member-states resistant to biodiversity-friendly policies.

The agricultural sector holds the greatest reduction potential to limit adverse effects of reactive nitrogen in the environment. Assessing the negative impacts of excessive release of reactive nitrogen into the biosphere requires spatially explicit information to capture e.g. hot spots of nitrogen surplus, nitrogen use efficiency, the impact on sensitive ecosystems or on ground/drinking water quality.The agricultural economic model CAPRI is one of the main tools applied by the European Commission for the ex-ante analysis of the impact of agricultural policies and agro-environmental legislation at regional level (NUTS2) in Europe. CAPRI builds on long-term time series of regional, national and international agricultural statistics (e.g. crop and livestock production, fertilizer use), market and trade data. Inputs (e.g. inorganic fertilizer) in CAPRI are explicitly linked to production which delivers the basis for connecting environmental indicators (e.g. nitrogen surplus) directly to individual activities.To provide the link between the agro-economic model CAPRI and the impact assessment of nitrogen use in agriculture on the environment at higher spatial resolution, we developed a procedure to disaggregate CAPRI regional data and provide maps of nitrogen input/output, crop and livestock production for the time series 2000 – 2018 at the level of Farm Structure Units (FSU) for 26 EU member states and the UK. The FSU are built by the spatial intersection of a 10 x 10 km2 INSPIRE compliant grid, the CAPRI NUTS2 region borders and the soil mapping units of the Harmonized World Soil Data Base (FAO/IIASA/ISRIC/ISS-CAS/JRC, 2009), having a median area of 12 km2 (minimum 1 km2, maximum 100 km2).The disaggregation procedure for 36 crop types and 18 livestock categories from the regional level to the FSU is driven by information from the gridded Farm Structure Survey (FSS, 2010) crop and livestock data at 10 x 10 km2 resolution, CORINE (2018) non-agricultural land cover shares, altitude and slope constraints for individual crops / crop classes derived from LUCAS survey data (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/lucas).Nitrogen inputs from mineral fertilizer and manure are disaggregated from the regional level to the FSU following the crops’ requirements. N input from atmospheric deposition and N supply by biological fixation is taken into account at FSU level. N from mineralization of soil organic matter could not be taken into account due to lack of data. N losses from volatilization and surface run-off, N removal by harvest, N in crop residues complete the N flow data set in agricultural areas at FSU level.

Abstract While biodiversity conservation policies often encounter resistance, the potential repercussions of diminished pollination services on the global agri-food system remain underexplored. We leverage a global agricultural sector model with a focused analysis of the European sector to evaluate the possible effects of a worldwide decline in both managed and wild pollinators by 2030. Our findings suggest that such a decline could reduce global average crop yields by 9%, leading to an 6% expansion in cropland area to mitigate the reduction in global crop production to 3%. Global economic welfare would decrease by 302 billion EUR (0.4% of global GDP). The European Union, particularly its Eastern members resistant to biodiversity-friendly policies, would incur disproportionately large economic impacts. Although market responses, including expanded land use and shifts in trade patterns, could alleviate some effects, they risk exacerbating food insecurity and hampering biodiversity conservation efforts, especially in the Global South.

The agricultural sector holds the greatest reduction potential to limit adverse effects of reactive nitrogen in the environment. Assessing the negative impacts of excessive release of reactive nitrogen into the biosphere requires spatially explicit information to capture e.g. hot spots of nitrogen surplus, nitrogen use efficiency, the impact on sensitive ecosystems or on ground/drinking water quality. The agricultural economic model CAPRI is one of the main tools applied by the European Commission for the ex-ante analysis of the impact of agricultural policies and agro-environmental legislation at regional level (NUTS2) in Europe. CAPRI builds on long-term time series of regional, national and international agricultural statistics (e.g. crop and livestock production, fertilizer use), market and trade data. Inputs (e.g. inorganic fertilizer) in CAPRI are explicitly linked to production which delivers the basis for connecting environmental indicators (e.g. nitrogen surplus) directly to individual activities. To provide the link between the agro-economic model CAPRI and the impact assessment of nitrogen use in agriculture on the environment at higher spatial resolution, we developed a procedure to disaggregate CAPRI regional data and provide maps of nitrogen input/output, crop and livestock production for the time series 2000 – 2018 at the level of Farm Structure Units (FSU) for 26 EU member states and the UK. The FSU are built by the spatial intersection of a 10 x 10 km2 INSPIRE compliant grid, the CAPRI NUTS2 region borders and the soil mapping units of the Harmonized World Soil Data Base (FAO/IIASA/ISRIC/ISS-CAS/JRC, 2009), having a median area of 12 km2 (minimum 1 km2, maximum 100 km2). The disaggregation procedure for 36 crop types and 18 livestock categories from the regional level to the FSU is driven by information from the gridded Farm Structure Survey (FSS, 2010) crop and livestock data at 10 x 10 km2 resolution, CORINE (2018) non-agricultural land cover shares, altitude and slope constraints for individual crops / crop classes derived from LUCAS survey data (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/lucas). Nitrogen inputs from mineral fertilizer and manure are disaggregated from the regional level to the FSU following the crops’ requirements. N input from atmospheric deposition and N supply by biological fixation is taken into account at FSU level. N from mineralization of soil organic matter could not be taken into account due to lack of data. N losses from volatilization and surface run-off, N removal by harvest, N in crop residues complete the N flow data set in agricultural areas at FSU level.

In light of Russia's war in Ukraine, three widely used trade and sector models were applied to assess: i) global food and nutrition security, ii) the effects on the bioeconomy, and iii) the implications for the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Simu-lation results show that an export stop of agri-food commodities in Ukraine and Russia results in a sub-stantial increase in global agri-food prices under short-term assumptions. However, the longer-term effects are much smaller due to global supply respons-es. The effects on food security depend on the im-portance of cereals in countries' diets. Furthermore, due to subsequent Gross Domestic Product declines, there may be further negative long-term implications for food security, especially in Africa. An additional scenario with a 10% increase in the global oil price shows that European Union (EU) biofuel production is heavily affected. The implementation of the initially envisaged CAP requirement of a set-aside of 4% of the farmed area would have little effect on EU cereal pro-duction, whereas a 10% reduction in fertiliser availa-bility in the EU would lead to a decline in net produc-tion of cereals. A joint reduction in pig herd size and pork consumption could partly mitigate the negative consequences of reduced fertiliser availability, other-wise leakage would occur either through the import of pork into the EU for consumption or the production of EU pork meat for export markets. To mitigate the market effects of the war, EU policymakers should: i) encourage efficient (animal) nutrient use to offset fertiliser shortages and land use choices that increase market availability of food crops, ii) encourage re-structuring of animal production in line with con-sumption developments to prevent leakage effects and ensure that non-food products are used efficiently as feed products, and iii) support vulnerable households to secure short-term food access.

Agro-ecosystems supply provisioning, regulating and cultural services to human society. This study focuses on the agro-ecosystem provisioning services regarding the production of agricultural biomass. These services strongly respond to the socio-economic demands of human beings, and are characterised by an injection of energy in the ecosystems production cycle which is often exceeding the ecological capacity of the ecosystem, i.e. the overall ability of the ecosystem to produce goods and services linked to its bio-physical structure and processes that take place during the agricultural production. Agricultural production is identified as ecosystem service in widely recognised ecosystem service frameworks, but currently there is no clear agreement within the scientific and policy communities on how the ecological-socio-economic flow linked to this provisioning service should be assessed, beyond a mere accounting of yields. This study attempts to provide a new insight to this issue by proposing an approach based on the energy budget, which takes into consideration the energy needed by the ecosystem to supply the service. The approach is based on the concepts of Energy Return on Investment (EROI) and Net Energy Balance (NEB), and considers different bio-physical structures and processes of agroecosystems. The work is structured in three parts: the first aims at estimating inputs (machinery, seeds, fertilizers, irrigation, labour) in energy terms; the second at estimating biomass output in energy terms; the third to compare actual agricultural production with three reference scenarios encompassing a range of human input (no input - low input -high input scenarios). Results show that in general terms cereal and grassland systems have the largest energy gains (both in terms of EROI and NEB). Such systems are characterised by a lower economic value of their output compared to other producing systems such as fruits, which have lower energy gains but a higher embodied energy, which is recognized in the market as valuable. Comparison of actual production systems with the high input scenario confirms that current production in Europe is already highly intensive, and that increasing the energy input would not improve the efficiency of the conversion of such additional energy into biomass. Overall, the proposed approach seems a useful tool to identify which are the factors in the agricultural production process that could be modified to improve the energy efficiency in agricultural systems and the sustainability of their production. This study can be considered as a first step in the assessment of the total energy balance of the agro-ecosystem. In fact it deals with the quantification of energy regarding human inputs and the corresponding output and further analysis should address crucial issues such as the quality of the energy and the embodied energy in the plant production, which will help to better understand the complexity of the agro-ecosystems

Semi-natural vegetation in agricultural land mainly includes extensively managed grasslands, agro-forestry areas and all vegetated features that are not used for crop production, such as hedgerows, buffer strips, field margins and woodlots. Semi-natural vegetation plays a major role in the supply of ecosystem services such as pollination, pest control, water quality control and erosion prevention. The efficiency of ecosystem services for agriculture should therefore depend upon the spatial distribution of semi-natural vegetation. In spite of such a relevance, semi-natural vegetation in agricultural land has never been mapped at the European scale. Therefore, we report here the first 1- km resolution map of semi-natural vegetation in agricultural land at the European Union scale. For that, we use an innovative convergence-of-evidence mapping method. We also present an assessment and a classification of the relation between semi-natural vegetation and ecosystem service supply at the regional scale. The major improvements in our mapping method are the following: (1) both large and small patches of perennial vegetation are detected in fine-resolution satellite images by incorporating the spectral rule-based preliminary classifier, (2) the identification of semi-natural grassland is enhanced, (3) European ancillary maps are used to help mapping of woody vegetation and identification of agro-ecosystems. Validation shows that our output map is 34.3 % more accurate than pre-existing components. In addition, results show that regulating ecosystem services increase with the abundance of semi-natural vegetation in agricultural lands with a coefficient R 2 of 0.67. The results also show no specific trend in relation to provisioning ecosystem services. These findings mean that semi-natural vegetation is usually beneficial for regulating services, whereas the relation to provisioning services is strictly context-dependent. Overall our study supports greening measures design in the frame of the Common Agricultural Policy for 2014–2020. Results also will help to identify green infrastructure elements and priority areas for ecological restoration.

This paper evaluates the animal welfare situation on cattle farms in Germany and Austria applying a multidimensional assessment framework. Using minimum requirements formulated in public legislation and private certification schemes, animal needs indices are calculated. They are subsequently compared with results from on-farm surveys. Most private certification schemes address animal welfare in their requirements but this does not necessarily result in higher levels of farm animal welfare if they only overlap with existing national standards. The on-farm evaluations showed that most farms already voluntarily overcomply with some of the standards imposed by public legislation or private labels. Thus, proposals to simply increase standards to improve farm animal welfare without considering the already implemented on-farm animal welfare level have to be evaluated with caution.

This paper evaluates the animal welfare situation on cattle farms in Germany and Austria applying a multidimensional assessment framework. Using minimum requirements formulated in public legislation and private certification schemes, animal needs indices are calculated. They are subsequently compared with results from on-farm surveys. Most private certification schemes address animal welfare in their requirements but this does not necessarily result in higher levels of farm animal welfare if they only overlap with existing national standards. The on-farm evaluations showed that most farms already voluntarily over-comply with some of the standards imposed by public legislation or private labels. Thus, proposals to simply increase standards to improve farm animal welfare without considering the already implemented on-farm animal welfare level have to be evaluated with caution.

Import tariffs are typically defined at a very detailed level, which is then used in trade negotiations. The WTO Framework Agreement of July 2004 proposes the use of a “tiered” formula where tariff lines classified in higher ‘bands’ are subject to proportionally higher cuts. Exceptions to the general rule, like sensitive products, are also defined at the tariff line level. Despite the relevance of tariff structure on trade liberalization, computable partial or general equilibrium models usually represent more aggregated products. In this respect, the literature suggests that market models can be combined with detailed tariff modules. We propose a new methodology to more accurately aggregate tariffs from the tariff line level to the one required by computable equilibrium models. The Tariff Reduction Impact Model for Agriculture (TRIMAG) uses the highest possible level of disaggregation (8 digits) and allows implementing tariff cuts and deriving the domestic price drops foreseen by alternative trade policy scenarios. Aggregated tariffs are derived by considering the substitutability effects in consumption between the tariff lines corresponding to the same aggregate product. We incorporate the tariff aggregates of TRIMAG resulting from a WTO agreement into the Common Agricultural Policy Regionalized Impact (CAPRI) partial equilibrium model. Differences between the standard tariff aggregation of CAPRI and the newly implemented methodology are illustrated. Results show that, when tariff cuts are applied at the 8 digit level, whether the substitution in consumption between tariff lines will result in a lower or higher aggregate tariff cut than the one that should directly be applied to the aggregate product is an empirical question. The selection of a limited number of sensitive tariff lines, if their share in the consumption bundle is high, might significantly raise the tariff for the corresponding aggregated product.

The paper presents key results regarding a possible reform of the Common Agricultural Policy direct payments, based on a scenario analysis by the CAPRI (Common Agricultural Policy Regionalized Impact) modelling system. Combining aggregate programming models at the NUTS 2 level with a global spatial multi-commodity model, it enables depicting the impacts of different policy and economic scenarios from regional to the global scale. The paper discusses simulated impacts on farm income and agricultural markets from implementing the European flat rate hectare payment corrected for the purchasing power disparities across the Member States while reducing the overall budget outlays for direct payments by 50% and dismantling the remaining coupled support to ruminants. The results are an outcome of a comparative static analysis against a reference scenario which assumes the Health Check policy in 2020. The model results suggest a drop of the agricultural gross value added by 9% at the aggregate EU27 level compared to the reference scenario. Impacts differ between the Member States groups, Member States and regions, depending on the share of premiums in the income from agriculture, specialization and competitiveness of production. The largest reduction is projected for the suckler cow herd, dropping by 6% compared to the reference scenario. The drop is caused by removing the coupled support and affecting mostly the herds in Spain and France.

This chapter aims at comparing weighting factors of animal welfare aspects for cattle kept in Austria and Germany as they are regulated by private, national and European legislation, as they are determined by on-farm compliance and as they are assigned by animal welfare and risk evaluation systems. To achieve this goal, the methodological approach of Annen et al. (2011) based on the Austrian “Animal Needs Index 35L” framework, enabling the assessment of pig fattening standards without cost-intensive on-farm measures, is refined and adapted for the evaluation of cattle standards. The comparison of legislative and private certification scheme standards for calves indicates only slight differences between the minimum animal welfare obligations existent in Austria and Germany. For adult cattle kept on German conventional non-certified farms considerably lower minimum requirements are detected than on comparable Austrian farms. Whereas on-farm measured results indicate substantial voluntary compliance with requirements concerning the animals’ social interaction, access to free range and the quality of stockman care, for those relating to floor and space allowance

This paper aims at assessing the status of animal welfare in Austria and Germany as it is regulated by private, national, and European animal welfare legislation. In order to achieve this, an inventory of existing private and state-driven animal welfare certification schemes that are relevant for fattening pigs in Austria and Germany is done, and the overlap between legislative and private certification requirements for animal welfare analyzed. The paper's methodological contribution lies in the development of an assessment approach based on the Austrian "Animal Needs Index" that allows the evaluation of minimum farm animal welfare standards without expensive and time-consuming on-farm measures. The comparison of legislative and private certification scheme pig standards indicate slight differences between the minimum animal welfare obligations of certification schemes existent in Austria and Germany whereas the reviewed Austrian scheme obligations show in general more diversification from the evaluated legislative standards.

Several technological approaches to mitigate methane dairy emissions are available; however, assuming that technological change alone generates the necessary incentives to accelerate emissions reduction is risky. Without adequate market signals, producers might choose not to use the technologies available or to the desired extent. Addressing this economic problem requires altering producers' and consumers' behaviour by introducing incentives or constraints. Employing the livestock policy simulation model, we examine the effects of reducing methane emissions in the dairy sector under different market-based policy instruments. We used the primary dairy sector in Uruguay as a case study. The results show that a policy mix combining a set of market-based instruments can be more effective than a single policy instrument alone.