Suchergebnisse

Research software has become a major asset in academic research. It often is the backbone of existing research methods, enables new research methods, implements and embeds research knowledge, and constitutes an essential research product in itself. Research software must be sustainable in order to understand, replicate, reproduce, and build upon existing research or conduct new research effectively. A change is needed in the way research software development and maintenance are incentivized, funded, structurally and infrastructurally supported, and legally treated. Failing to do so will threaten the quality and validity of research. In this context, more than 50 scientists from various institutions gathered at the Robert Koch Institute in November 2019 for a DFG roundtable discussion on sustainability aspects of research software and to draw attention to the need for funding instruments for the sustainable development and provision of research software. The subsequently published position paper (Anzt et al., 2021) seeks to increase the awareness of political and academic decision-makers on the importance and needs of sustainable research software practices. In particular, it recommends strategies and measures to create an environment for sustainable research software. ; Forschungssoftware ist zu einem zentralen Gut der akademischen Forschung geworden. Sie ist oft das Rückgrat bestehender Forschungsmethoden, ermöglicht neue Forschungsmethoden, implementiert und bettet Forschungswissen ein und stellt selbst ein wesentliches Forschungsprodukt dar. Forschungssoftware muss nachhaltig sein, um bestehende Wissenschaft zu verstehen, zu replizieren, zu reproduzieren und darauf aufzubauen, um neue Forschung effektiv durchzuführen. Daher ist eine Änderung der Art und Weise erforderlich, wie die Entwicklung und Wartung von Forschungssoftware derzeit motiviert, incentiviert, finanziert, strukturell und infrastrukturell unterstützt und rechtlich behandelt wird. Geschieht dies nicht, gefährdet dies die Qualität und Validität der Forschung. Vor diesem Hintergrund trafen sich im November 2019 mehr als 50 Wissenschaftler:innen aus verschiedenen Institutionen zu einem DFG-Rundgespräch am RobertKoch-Institut, um Nachhaltigkeitsaspekte von Forschungssoftware zu diskutieren und auf die Notwendigkeit von Förderinstrumenten für die nachhaltige Entwicklung und Bereitstellung von Forschungssoftware aufmerksam zu machen. Das anschließend veröffentlichte Positionspapier (Anzt et al., 2021) wendet sich gezielt an politische und akademische Entscheidungsträger, um das Bewusstsein für die Bedeutung und den Bedarf einer nachhaltigen Forschungssoftwarepraxis zu schärfen. Insbesondere empfiehlt es Strategien und Maßnahmen, um ein Umfeld für nachhaltige Forschungssoftware zu schaffen.

Forschungssoftware ist zu einem zentralen Gut der akademischen Forschung geworden. Sie ist oft das Rückgrat bestehender Forschungsmethoden, ermöglicht neue Forschungsmethoden, implementiert und bettet Forschungswissen ein und stellt selbst ein wesentliches Forschungsprodukt dar. Forschungssoftware muss nachhaltig sein, um bestehende Wissenschaft zu verstehen, zu replizieren, zu reproduzieren und darauf aufzubauen, um neue Forschung effektiv durchzuführen. Daher ist eine Änderung der Art und Weise erforderlich, wie die Entwicklung und Wartung von Forschungssoftware derzeit motiviert, incentiviert, finanziert, strukturell und infrastrukturell unterstützt und rechtlich behandelt wird. Geschieht dies nicht, gefährdet dies die Qualität und Validität der Forschung. Vor diesem Hintergrund trafen sich im November 2019 mehr als 50 Wissenschaftler:innen aus verschiedenen Institutionen zu einem DFG-Rundgespräch am RobertKoch-Institut, um Nachhaltigkeitsaspekte von Forschungssoftware zu diskutieren und auf die Notwendigkeit von Förderinstrumenten für die nachhaltige Entwicklung und Bereitstellung von Forschungssoftware aufmerksam zu machen. Das anschließend veröffentlichte Positionspapier (Anzt et al., 2021) wendet sich gezielt an politische und akademische Entscheidungsträger, um das Bewusstsein für die Bedeutung und den Bedarf einer nachhaltigen Forschungssoftwarepraxis zu schärfen. Insbesondere empfiehlt es Strategien und Maßnahmen, um ein Umfeld für nachhaltige Forschungssoftware zu schaffen. ; Research software has become a major asset in academic research. It often is the backbone of existing research methods, enables new research methods, implements and embeds research knowledge, and constitutes an essential research product in itself. Research software must be sustainable in order to understand, replicate, reproduce, and build upon existing research or conduct new research effectively. A change is needed in the way research software development and maintenance are incentivized, funded, structurally and infrastructurally supported, and legally treated. Failing to do so will threaten the quality and validity of research. In this context, more than 50 scientists from various institutions gathered at the Robert Koch Institute in November 2019 for a DFG roundtable discussion on sustainability aspects of research software and to draw attention to the need for funding instruments for the sustainable development and provision of research software. The subsequently published position paper (Anzt et al., 2021) seeks to increase the awareness of political and academic decision-makers on the importance and needs of sustainable research software practices. In particular, it recommends strategies and measures to create an environment for sustainable research software.

Farm demographics has been recognized as an important driver of structural change in European agriculture. Focus groups and computer simulations on farm demographic change were used to better understand its role for the case study regions of the Altmark in the eastern part of Germany and Flanders in the northern part of Belgium. According to these analyses, many potential agricultural entrants are deterred by what they view as a poor quality of life that farming offers. This applies to farm successors as well as hired workers. For higher attractiveness of agriculture, policy objectives should address the social image of farming as well as revitalize rural areas. Increasingly critical is the demand for skilled hired labour. However, policies dealing with farm demographic change ignore these needs and focus almost exclusively on farm succession. Particularly, the direct payment system, including additional support for small farms and young farmers, must be re-evaluated for its effectiveness. The analyses provide evidence that this system constrains European agricultural development more than assists it; ultimately preventing farms from adapting and transforming. ; EU; en; contact: miranda.meuwissen@wur.nl

European agriculture as well as the wider economy face substantial demographic changes in the upcoming decades. The baby boomer generation will retire within the next 10 to 15 years and the cohorts of the young generations which will enter the labour market in the next decades are much smaller in size. Accordingly, the farming sector will have to compete with other sectors and urban areas which offer attractive career prospects. The SURE-Farm project seeks to better understand the sustainability and resilience of European farming systems, including the challenges related to farm demographics and what this means for structural change. This policy brief aims to tie the findings of SURE-Farm on farm demographics with policy options which may enable resilient farm structures. ; EU; BE; DE; en; contact: miranda.meuwissen@wur.nl

The strong political support for biogas production in Germany over the past decade has greatly affected agricultural production, farms and land markets. This paper analyzes the effects of Germany's biogas policies on agricultural development by using the agent-based simulation model AgriPoliS. Particular focus is placed on the effects of the previous German Renewable Energy Act (REA, German "EEG") of 2012, as well as the latest amendments, which were added in 2014. Our results show that under the previous REA and its predecessors, biogas production provided an attractive investment opportunity, especially for large farms, which led to a boost in biogas production. However, this policy also caused distortions within the agricultural sector, including increasing land rental prices. These effects particularly threatened farms that were not able to invest in biogas, as well as smaller biogas farms. On average, biogas farms could not increase their profitability. The main reason for this effect can be seen in the fact that a significant share of the value added is transferred via increased rental prices to land owners. The amendment of the REA in 2014, which reduced support levels substantially, partly attenuates some of these effects, though the previous policy will cast a long shadow.

Business management games have been used for decades, primarily for educational purposes, training, and entertainment. More recently, the use of such games has expanded to an experimental platform. Usually business management games are directly designed and developed for one or more of these purposes; however, this paper discusses another possibility: the development of a business management game based on an existing agent-based model. We encourage this use and describe the extension of the agent-based model AgriPoliS, which has been widely used to analyze structural change in agriculture. We document the resulting software FarmAgriPoliS and provide a systematic classification of FarmAgriPoliS into the framework of business management games with agricultural background. Furthermore, we evaluate the suitability of FarmAgriPoliS for teaching, experimental use, and online gaming.

Farm succession is a key policy concern of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy and the European Commission's proposals for the future. This article uses the agent‐based model AgriPoliS to study the effects of the availability of potential successors in two agricultural regions, one in Belgium (Flanders) and one in eastern Germany (the Altmark). The analysis provides no indication that considerably fewer successors would threaten the ability of the farming systems to ensure an adequate provision of private and public goods. Most farm closures occur due to the low efficiency of some farms which hinders the ability of famers to cover true long‐term opportunity costs, i.e. the possibility of earning a higher income outside agriculture. In both study regions, a lack of successors leads to adaptations which create new opportunities for other farms and, in Flanders, to higher economic prosperity at the regional level. The adaptations differ between regions due to existing farm structures, labour demands and costs, institutional frameworks, and the ability to exploit economies of scale. The results of the simulations challenge the notion central to many CAP policies – that more farm succession is better for European agriculture. These findings call for a contextualised reconsideration of agricultural policies which support structural change and regional growth – not hinder it. ; EU; BE; DE; en; contact:

This report focuses on the effects farm demographics, specifically farm succession, have on farm structural change, specifically the presence of a successor. It will do so using a mixed methods approach to first understand the demographic change in two European farming regions, the Altmark (Germany) and Flanders (Belgium) with focus groups. Based on information from the focus groups and empirical data, we simulate two scenarios in each region using the agent-based model the Agricultural Policy Simulator (AgriPoliS). The scenarios use the demographics extension, which allows the calibration of the model region's farmer age and succession demographics, detailed in SURE-Farm Deliverable 3.4. One scenario is calibrated to empirical data with an EU-based estimation of successor likelihood, and the other which simulates 100% successor likelihood. The simulations are then analyzed with various farm structure indicators to see what effect farm demographics have on farm structures. ; BE; DE; en; contact: pitson@iamo.de

Farm succession is a key policy concern of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy and the European Commission's proposals for the future. This article uses the agent-based model AgriPoliS to study the effects of the availability of potential successors in two agricultural regions, one in Belgium (Flanders) and one in eastern Germany (the Altmark). The analysis provides no indication that considerably fewer successors would threaten the ability of the farming systems to ensure an adequate provision of private and public goods. Most farm closures occur due to the low efficiency of some farms which hinders the ability of famers to cover true long-term opportunity costs, i.e. the possibility of earning a higher income outside agriculture. In both study regions, a lack of successors leads to adaptations which create new opportunities for other farms and, in Flanders, to higher economic prosperity at the regional level. The adaptations differ between regions due to existing farm structures, labour demands and costs, institutional frameworks, and the ability to exploit economies of scale. The results of the simulations challenge the notion central to many CAP policies – that more farm succession is better for European agriculture. These findings call for a contextualised reconsideration of agricultural policies which support structural change and regional growth – not hinder it.

This paper presents a tool to analyze the linkages between farm generational renewal and structural change of European farming regions, allowing researchers to assess the farm system's resilience. There is a strong focus on farm generational renewal both within academia and policy. However, the focus often lies on the family. This results in a knowledge gap about generational renewal of the increasing number of farms which rely on hired labour and farm almost half of European agricultural land. To begin to fill the gap, the Agricultural Policy Simulator (AgriPoliS), an agent-based model used to analyze structural change of farm regions, has been selected to extend to simulate generational renewal. The model is calibrated to the Altmark, a heterogenous farming region in Germany with both family and corporate farms. To support the model's extension and adaptation, a focus group work shop was held in the Altmark on farm generational renewal. The extension is used to simulate three scenarios, which reveal the robust and adaptive resilience capacities of the Altmark. ; EU; DE; en; contact: pitson@iamo.de

Demographic trends affect EU farms' availability of successors and hired labour. If a potential successor is available, generational renewal on family farms occurs in stages: the successor's identity formation, the farm transfer, and the farm development. If generational renewal on the farm level is not possible, adaptations of other farms can ensure the future provision of private and public goods on the regional level if there is a sufficient supply of hired labour.

In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden Möglichkeiten zur Analyse verhaltensbasierter Aspekte des Agrarstrukturwandels entwickelt und evaluiert. Grundlage ist FarmAgriPoliS, ein agentenbasiertes Planspiel, mit dem das Entscheidungsverhalten und der wirtschaftliche Erfolg realer Menschen in einem Labor experimentell untersucht werden kann. Bei den Experimenten können vier unterschiedliche Verhaltenscluster identifiziert werden. Die ersten drei Cluster, die sich in etwa 88% der Experimente finden, entsprechen der Prospect Theory - das heißt, die TeilnehmerInnen waren erfolgreicher bei der Vermeidung von Verlusten als bei der Generierung von Gewinnen. Etwa 12% der TeilnehmerInnen waren jedoch wesentlich erfolgreicher als die Computeragenten und anderen TeilnehmerInnen mit identischen Voraussetzungen und lassen sich somit als PfadbrecherInnen charakterisieren. Zudem wurden die Implikationen dieses pfadbrechenden Verhaltens für andere Betriebe in der Nachbarschaft analysiert.

In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden Möglichkeiten zur Analyse verhaltensbasierter Aspekte des Agrarstrukturwandels entwickelt und evaluiert. Grundlage ist FarmAgriPoliS, ein agentenbasiertes Planspiel, mit dem das Entscheidungsverhalten und der wirtschaftliche Erfolg realer Menschen in einem Labor experimentell untersucht werden kann. Bei den Experimenten können vier unterschiedliche Verhaltenscluster identifiziert werden. Die ersten drei Cluster, die sich in etwa 88% der Experimente finden, entsprechen der Prospect Theory - das heißt, die TeilnehmerInnen waren erfolgreicher bei der Vermeidung von Verlusten als bei der Generierung von Gewinnen. Etwa 12% der TeilnehmerInnen waren jedoch wesentlich erfolgreicher als die Computeragenten und anderen TeilnehmerInnen mit identischen Voraussetzungen und lassen sich somit als PfadbrecherInnen charakterisieren. Zudem wurden die Implikationen dieses pfadbrechenden Verhaltens für andere Betriebe in der Nachbarschaft analysiert.