Food and fuel security in the face of population growth and climate change represent key societal challenges. Extending an arable farm-level bio-economic optimisation model ‘MEETA’ to include dedicated energy crops (DECs) and water metrics, we quantify water use implications and trade-offs...

The topic of integration and development of sustainable chains has lately gained much attention in the academia debates. In particular, how to manage integration in the bio-energy chains is discussed. Integration is a process of progressive dependence among different actors willing to coordinate...

The European Union Water Framework Directive requires governments to set water quality objectives based on good ecological status. This includes specific requirements to control diffuse pollution. Diffuse phosphorous (P) pollution plays a pivotal role in influencing water quality with losses of...

There is increasing interest in biomass crops as an alternative farm enterprise. However, given the relatively low uptake of these crops in Ireland, there is limited information concerning the risk associated with their production and its potential impact on returns. The uncertainty surrounding...

Investments in renewable energy, such as new wind farms and hydro schemes, are being promoted as a new means of diversifying rural employment in Scotland*. However, such investments are associated with a range of environmental impacts which might be detrimental to other economic activities, such...

Recent extreme weather events have resulted in an ongoing discussion on the issues of land use and compensation payments within Austrian agriculture. Building on a functional evaluation system for agricultural lands as developed within the Interreg IIIB project “ILUP”, the national project...

This empirical study investigates the effects of different agri-environmental schemes on individual producer behaviour. We consider the effects on production intensity, performance and structure for a sample of UK cereal farms for the period 2000 to 2009 and use the policy examples of the...

This study investigates the impact of climate change adaptation on farm households’ downside risk exposure in the Nile Basin of Ethiopia. The analysis relies on a moment-based specification of the stochastic production function. We use an empirical strategy that accounts for the heterogeneity...

‘Climate-smart’ is the term coined to define agricultural systems that are resilient to climate change, and offer efficient emissions mitigation potential without compromising on productivity, food security and livelihoods. As part of the implementation of such systems, this study developed...