The CCRI was part of a consortium that has successfully received funding from the EC for a Horizon 2020 research project entitled: SUFISA – Sustainable finance for sustainable agriculture and fisheries (Horizon 2020. Call: H2020-SFS-2014-2. Topic: SFS-19-2014). The CCRI has a pivotal role to play in SUFISA, being responsible for work-package number two.
Drs James Kirwan, Damian Maye and Mauro Vigani are working on this project.
Follow Sufisa on Twitter @sufisa_eu
The work-package involves running a producer survey across 22 regions of the EU, each of which will involve up to 300 producers. This will result in a large database that will be subjected to a comparative cross-regional econometric and descriptive analysis. In order to help deliver this work-package, the CCRI has recently employed Dr Mauro Vigani, who was previously employed as a Research Fellow at the European Commission (EC), Joint Research Centre (DG JRC), Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS), Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Economy Unit (AgriLife) – Seville, Spain.
Coordinated by Professor Erik Mathijs of the Catholic University Leuven, Belgium, SUFISA involves a consortium of 13 partners from the following countries:
• Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium).
• University of Pisa (Italy)
• University of Gloucestershire, CCRI (UK)
• Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (France)
• Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna (Italy)
• University of Hasselt (Belgium)
• Nodibinajums Baltic Studies Centre (Latvia)
• University of Evora (Portugal)
• Aarhus University (Denmark)
• Agricultural University of Athens (Greece)
• Hochschule für nachhaltige Entwicklung Eberswalde (Germany)
• Jagiellonian University (Poland)
• University of Belgrade (Serbia)
The project has also received support from a wide range of relevant stakeholders from across Europe. These include:
At an EU-level:
COPA COGECA; FOODDRINKEUROPE; Via Campesina; Euromontana; Greenpeace.
At a national level:
Belgium: Departement Landbouw en Visserij; FEVIA
Germany: Hessian Ministry of Agriculture; Zukunftsagentur Brandenburg; Fördergemeinschaft ökologischer Landbau Berlin-Brandenburg
France: Aquimer
Greece: WWF Greece
Italy: Regione Toscana
Latvia: Latvian Farmers Federation; Farmers Parliament Latvia; Latvian Agricultural Organisation Cooperation Council; Kalnciema Quarter
Poland: Zwiazek Zawodowy Centrum Narodowe Mlodych Rolnikow; Centrum Doradztwa Rolniczego w Brwinowie oddział w Krakowie
Portugal: Local action Group in the Alentejo region; Fundao Eugnio de Almeida
Serbia: Group for Creative Economy
UK: Soil Association
The project runs from May 2015 to April 2019.
Updates:
Damian Maye and Mauro Vigani were in Portugal from 25th-27th January 2017 presenting an update on progress to date on the overall work package, as well as what needs to be done in the next few months. The project meeting took place in the historic world heritage site of Evora, 100 km SE of Lisbon in Portugal.
Damian Maye, James Kirwan and Mauro Vigani were in Esbjerg, Denmark on the 4th to 6th July 2017 for the fifth project meeting. It was a busy and productive meeting, which included finalising the design of an inventory for the project, agreeing plans for a producer survey and agreeing procedures to help undertake a cross-comparative analysis of institutional arrangements. They were also involved in discussions for their two commodity case studies, related to inshore fisheries and dairy farming respectively.
Project Abstract
A sound functioning of the European food system is central to the delivery of food and nutrition security for all Europeans. However, this system faces many economic, environmental and social challenges, as well as opportunities, following a range of socio-economic and technological developments that are not equally distributed throughout the EU. Future policymaking that aims to develop healthy and resilient food systems needs to take into account this differentiation and diversity of approaches, which necessitate foresight activities that take into account both the development of important driving forces as well as the social and spatial diversity involved.
Primary production – that is agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture – forms the foundation of the food system. Its structure and performance is influenced by various conditions shaped by both the public and the private sectors. As economic agents, primary producers aim to generate a sufficient amount of income, but their financial conditions are highly dependent on both public and private actors, such as government regulators (including the EU’s agricultural and fisheries policies), the financial sector, suppliers, the food industry, retailers, etc. In other words, the web of policy requirements as well as input and output market imperfections greatly shape farmers’ and fishermen’s livelihoods. Knowledge on the conditions of primary producers and the driving forces influencing these conditions exists, but in a fragmented way: not all primary producers and regions are covered, not all driving forces have been investigated, cross-linkages between them have been insufficiently analysed, and future opportunities are not well integrated, etc.
The purpose of SUFISA is to identify sustainable practices and policies in the agricultural, fish and food sectors that support the sustainability of primary producers in a context of multi-dimensional policy requirements, market uncertainties and globalisation.
Follow Sufisa on Twitter @sufisa_eu
View the EU CORDIS record for this project
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme for research and innovation grant agreement no 635577