FLINT – Farm-level Indicators for New Topics in policy evaluation: an introduction

Abstract

Societal expectations about agricultural production are changing. There are increased demands on issues such as food safety, animal welfare and the impact of agriculture on the environment (land, water and air). These changes have been refl ected in the European Union's (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), but information on these issues is lacking and this complicates the required evaluation of policies. The EU Framework 7 project FLINT tries to close this gap by analysing the feasibility of collecting data on these new topics. FLINT has established a data infrastructure with up-to-date farm-level indicators for the monitoring and evaluation of the CAP. The project created a pilot network of more than 1,000 farms to collect a set of sustainability indicators at farm level. The pilot represents farm diversity at EU level, including the different administrative environments in the Member States. This paper sets out the context and the main contributions of the project.

Sustainability assessment of agricultural production: case study of Latvian crop sector

“…A few of overall indicator systems are as follows: Eurostat Sustainable Development Indicators [7]; 17 Sustainable Development Goals [8]; OECD Agri-environmental Indicators [9]; OECD Green Growth Indicators [10]; OECD Better Life Index [11]; OECD Well-being indicators [12]; Environmental Performance Index (EPI) [13]; Ecological Footprint [14]; Living Planet Index (LPI) [15]. However, indicator systems that are suitable for measuring sustainability at farm level can be mentioned the following: Sustainability indicators for the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) network [16]; Indicators of sustainability at farm level by dimension of [17].…”

“…A methodology "Sustainability Indicators: Measuring the Immeasurable?" developed by S. Bell and S. Morse [25] as well as a research study on sustainability assessment by employing FADN indicators conducted in the EU Member States [16] were used when assessing the appropriateness of every indicator. [21] Using the system of levels for assessment of indicators, change in the values of the agroecosystem services and goods created by all the types of capital is assumed to be the starting point.…”

Potential development of Irish agricultural sustainability indicators for current and future policy evaluation needs

“…The Teagasc NFS produces a number of farm-level social indicators derived from its annual data collection Lynch et al, 2016b). In 2015, a number of further social welfare questions were also asked as part of an EU project (FLINT, Poppe et al, 2016). The FLINT project explored additional FADN data collection, including farmer assessments of their personal quality of life and job satisfaction, and details relating to labour such as holidays and free days taken, cover in case of illness, the number of hours worked off-farm by the farmer or their spouse, and farmer attendance of social events (Herrera et al, 2016).…”

Estimating the link between farm productivity and innovation in the Netherlands

“…There are promising attempts in this direction as e.g. the key findings of the recently completed FLINT project show (see, for example, Poppe et al, 2016). However, statistical and econometric modelling and analyses should be regarded as the primary candidate able toat least partlyclose this gap in the near future in order to foster evidence based policy making.…”