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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

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.

The European Union (EU) agricultural sector has experienced significant structural changes over the last decades, mostly consisting of a decline in the number of farms, farm size growth, and a conversion towards intensive systems. This process led to a concentration of the EU agricultural sector towards fewer, bigger, and more specialised farms, seeking higher profits through economies of scale. There are multiple drivers of structural change, and they vary between EU farming systems according to their characteristics. The most common drivers of structural change are an ageing farming population, the past farming structure, natural and ecological conditions, technological innovation, and off-farm employment opportunities. Among the different policy instruments of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the most significant measure is the Young Farmer payment (YFP) included in the Pillar I of the CAP since the 2013 Reform. This deliverable ims to assess the impact of the YFP on the structural change of two EU regions farming systems, namely the Altmark region in Germany and the Flanders region in Belgium. The paper adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative methods. ; EU; BE; DE; en; contact: mvigani@glos.ac.uk