Shared Socio-economic Pathways for European agriculture and food systems: The Eur-Agri-SSPs

Mitter, Hermine; Techen, Anja-Kristine; Sinabell, Franz; Helming, Katharina; Schmid, Erwin; Bodirsky, Benjamin Leon; Holman, Ian P.; Kok, Kasper; Lehtonen, Heikki; Leip, Adrian; Mouël, Chantal Le; Mathijs, Erik; Mehdi, Bano; Mittenzwei, Klaus; Mora, Olivier; Øistad, Knut; Øygarden, Lillian; Priess, Jörg; Reidsma, P.; Schaldach, Rüdiger; Schönhart, Martin

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102159

Cited by 72 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 84 publications

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“…There were few commercial firms represented, in contrast to the strong role these played in our study. Nevertheless, the findings of Mitter et al (2020) show similarities with ours under different SSPs, though with some important exceptions relating to national level context. For example, their results suggest increasing direct farm payments in Europe under SSP3 while our study concluded, with strong stakeholder agreement, that direct payments will most likely decrease in Finland.…”

Section: Comparison To Other Studiessupporting

confidence: 74%

“…Overall, the similarity of many key outcomes between our study and the studies of Zandersen et al (2019) and Mitter et al (2020), which use a comparable participatory approach, offer grounds for confidence that our results are salient as well as being consistent with the global SSPs. Our assessment of plausibility is also founded on our analysis of the detailed stakeholder interpretations of the SSPs, and subsequent consistency checking against the global narratives.…”

Section: Comparison To Other Studiessupporting

confidence: 66%

“…1, omitting SSP2, which is an intermediate case. Aside from the logistical advantage of reducing the number of pathways to four, SSP2 was regarded as being less likely to offer insightful departures from recent and on-going trends (see also Mitter et al 2020). It also removed any temptation for future users of the narratives to perceive this middle case as a more likely or more robust selection than the other four.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, under SSP5, Zandersen et al (2019) indicate increasing agricultural production and reduced N and P use efficiency across the larger region, whereas this study suggests decreasing production and increasing nutrient use efficiency in Finland, implying reduced water pollution, an opposite outcome from the larger-scale study. Mitter et al (2020) applied a stakeholder-assisted protocol developed earlier (Mitter et al 2019) to create five Europeanscale SSP storylines for developments in food and agriculture, summarising this using a table of trends for key variables similar to Table 2 in this study. In their study, storyline development was assisted by 105 stakeholders and experts from different parts of Europe (Mitter et al 2020).…”

Section: Comparison To Other Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mitter et al (2020) applied a stakeholder-assisted protocol developed earlier (Mitter et al 2019) to create five Europeanscale SSP storylines for developments in food and agriculture, summarising this using a table of trends for key variables similar to Table 2 in this study. In their study, storyline development was assisted by 105 stakeholders and experts from different parts of Europe (Mitter et al 2020). However, the list of affiliations of the experts reveals that advocacy organisations, such as national farmer organisations as well as nonprofit organisations dominated the group of stakeholders.…”

Section: Comparison To Other Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Shared socioeconomic pathways for climate change research in Finland: co-developing extended SSP narratives for agriculture

et al. 2021

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Shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), developed at global scale, comprise narrative descriptions and quantifications of future world developments that are intended for climate change scenario analysis. However, their extension to national and regional scales can be challenging. Here, we present SSP narratives co-developed with stakeholders for the agriculture and food sector in Finland. These are derived from intensive discussions at a workshop attended by approximately 39 participants offering a range of sectoral perspectives. Using general background descriptions of the SSPs for Europe, facilitated discussions were held in parallel for each of four SSPs reflecting very different contexts for the development of the sector up to 2050 and beyond. Discussions focused on five themes from the perspectives of consumers, producers and policy-makers, included a joint final session and allowed for post-workshop feedback. Results reflect careful sector-based, national-level interpretations of the global SSPs from which we have constructed consensus narratives. Our results also show important critical remarks and minority viewpoints. Interesting features of the Finnish narratives compared to the global SSP narratives include greater emphasis on environmental quality; significant land abandonment in SSPs with reduced livestock production and increased plant-based diets; continued need for some farm subsidies across all SSPs and opportunities for diversifying domestic production under scenarios of restricted trade. Our results can contribute to the development of more detailed national long-term scenarios for food and agriculture that are both relevant for local stakeholders and researchers as well as being consistent with global scenarios being applied internationally.

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Section: Comparison To Other Studiessupporting

confidence: 74%

Section: Comparison To Other Studiessupporting

confidence: 66%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Comparison To Other Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Comparison To Other Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Shared socioeconomic pathways for climate change research in Finland: co-developing extended SSP narratives for agriculture

et al. 2021

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European consumer and societal stakeholders' response to crop improvements and new plant breeding techniques

Nair

Fischer

Moscatelli

et al. 2022

Food and Energy Security

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The global demand for providing nutritious, sustainable, and safe diets for a 10 billion population by 2050 while preserving affordability, reducing environmental impacts, and adapting to climate change will require accelerating the transition to sustainable agri‐food systems. A plausible way to help tackle these challenges is by developing new plant varieties that have improved crop yield, plant nutritional quality, and sustainability (or resilience) traits. However, stakeholders, consumers, and citizens' concerns and appreciation of future‐proofing crops and the acceptability of new plant breeding strategies are not well‐established. These groups are actors in the agri‐food systems, and their views, values, needs, and expectations are crucial in helping to co‐design fair, ethical, acceptable, sustainable, and socially desirable policies on new plant breeding techniques (NPBTs) and the transition to sustainable agri‐food systems. In this study, we engaged with consumer experts and societal stakeholders to consider their perceptions, expectations, and acceptability of improving crops and NPBTs for future‐proofing the agri‐food systems. Our analysis points to a need for governments to take a proactive role in regulating NPBTs, ensure openness and transparency in breeding new crop varieties, and inform consumers about the effects of these breeding programmes and the risks and benefits of the new crop varieties developed. Consumer experts and societal stakeholders considered these strategies necessary to instil confidence in society about NPBTs and accelerate the transition to sustainable agri‐food systems.

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Wind erosion in European agricultural landscapes: More than physics

et al. 2022

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Wind erosion from agricultural land is an underrated and understudied environmental challenge in Europe. Its societal and policy relevance will likely increase in the near future due to climate change and associated increases in the frequency, severity and patterns of atmospheric events such as droughts. We review the research on this issue and find it to be fragmented, siloed and dominated by natural sciences, leaving important research gaps. The most important gaps that circumscribe a research agenda for the future include specific effects of future climate change on wind erosion, the relevance of wind erosion for public health and ecosystem functioning, farmers' behaviour affecting erosion risk and feedback between land management and environmental change, and appropriate policy approaches to address wind erosion risks. Social science contributions are thus required to make wind erosion research relevant for addressing the related societally most pressing questions. We provide a social–environmental systems perspective to highlight the potential of inter‐ and transdisciplinary research into wind erosion in times of climate change and the increasingly recognized need to transform agriculture towards more sustainability and climate resilience. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

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Shared Socio-economic Pathways for European agriculture and food systems: The Eur-Agri-SSPs

Cited by 72 publications

References 84 publications

Shared socioeconomic pathways for climate change research in Finland: co-developing extended SSP narratives for agriculture

Shared socioeconomic pathways for climate change research in Finland: co-developing extended SSP narratives for agriculture

European consumer and societal stakeholders' response to crop improvements and new plant breeding techniques

Wind erosion in European agricultural landscapes: More than physics

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