Improving the Resilience- enabling Capacity of the Common Agricultural Policy: Policy Recommendations for More Resilient EU Farming Systems

One of the aims of the post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is to improve the resilience of Europe's farming systems. The CAP of the budget period 2014–2020, however, has insufficiently supported the resilience of farming systems. The ongoing CAP reform process offers an appropriate opportunity to integrate a broader perspective on resilience in the CAP. We therefore propose a set of policy recommendations on how to improve the capability of the CAP to support more fully the resilience (i.e. robustness, adaptability and transformability) of farming systems in the EU. The policy recommendations are based on a comparative analysis of six national co-design workshops with stakeholders and a final EU-level workshop with Brussels-based experts. We concluded three key lessons about the CAP's influence on resilience: (1) resilience challenges, needs and policy effects are context-specific; (2) resilience capacities are complementary, but trade-offs between robustness, adaptability and transformability occur at the level of policies and due to budget competition; (3) there is a need for a coordinated long-term vision for Europe's agriculture, which is difficult to achieve through the bargaining processes associated with a CAP reform. We propose specific policy recommendations that could contribute to a better balance between policies that support robustness, adaptability and transformability of Europe's farming systems.

At the time of writing, discussions about the post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) are in full swing. In June 2018, the European Commission communicated its post-2020 CAP proposals, which have been debated since then. The Commission states that the CAP should contribute to 'ensuring a more resilient agricultural sector in Europe' (EC, 2018). Improving resilience will support farming systems, i.e. regional networks of comparable farm types and other non-farm actors within an agroecological context, to manage and respond to various challenges, while maintaining their essential functions, like producing food, providing employment and income, and preserving rural environments (Meuwissen et al., 2019).
Public policies, as part of a broader social context, affect the resilience of farming systems to maintain their desired functions in the face of challenges by enabling or constraining three distinctive resilience capacities: robustness, adaptability and transformability (Meuwissen et al., this issue). Robustness is the capacity of a system to resist shocks and stresses, and to maintain previous levels of functionality, without major changes (Urruty et al., 2016).
Adaptability is the capacity of a system to adjust in response to changing external circumstances, while maintaining important functionalities (Folke et al., 2010). Transformability is the capacity of a system to change fundamentally in response to shocks or stresses that make the existing system unable to maintain its essential functions (Walker et al., 2004).
The CAP, potentially, has considerable effects on the robustness, adaptability and transformability of Europe's farming systems. Previous Horizon2020 SURE-Farm research has shown that the CAP and its national implementations support the robustness of different farming systems to varying degrees, provide less support for adaptability, and often even constrain transformability by incentivising the status quo (Feindt et al., 2019). Also, the CAP's resilience-enabling and -constraining measures are experienced in practice by different farming system actors as complex (Buitenhuis et al., 2019). We followed up on these SURE-farm findings by organising co-design workshops in six EU countries with stakeholders to reflect extensively on previous results and to collaboratively develop policy recommendations (Box 1).
Against this background, this paper presents a comparative analysis of the co-design workshops. For each workshop, the perceived resilience challenges and proposed policy recommendations with the highest degree of convergence between participants were extracted through content analysis of the workshop transcripts and protocols. This analysis led to a synthesis of the recommendations per workshop. These recommendations are compared and presented in Table 1.

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This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The co-design workshops: key policy recommendations We now present the key policy recommendations that followed from round 2 of the national co-design workshops.

Dairy farming in Flanders -Belgium.
The workshop resulted in recommendations for improving the robustness and adaptability of dairy farming in Flanders. First, dairy farmers experienced unnecessary administrative burdens caused by inconsistency between audits. It was recommended to reduce inconsistency and overlap between audits by setting long-term, overarching requirements. Second, land prices were driven up by incentives, such as hectare-based payments, which should, therefore, be reconsidered. Moreover, CAP subsidies should be limited more strictly to active, and especially young, farmers to reduce the leakage of agricultural subsidies to nonfarming landowners. Third, land access for new and established farmers should be improved by making the Belgian tenancy law more flexible, encouraging landowners to offer long-term leases to farmers. In addition, Flemish dairy farmers would benefit from more flexible spatial planning guidelines that would make it easier for them to adapt and innovate as current guidelines favour conventional agricultural land use. Fourth, a new programme for small innovations with lower administrative demands should be introduced in the Rural Development Programme (RDP), increasing possibilities for small innovations on farms. Last, adaptive and transformative practices would benefit from: (1) increasing support for knowledge exchange networks and agricultural education; and (2) a CAP that communicates a long-term vision with clear long-term objectives, supported by an EU framework on data use and digitalisation in the agricultural sector.

Hazelnut production in Viterbo -Italy.
The workshop on the hazelnut system in Viterbo focused on the system's robustness and adaptability. First, the Common Market Organisation (CMO) supports robustness by helping producer organisations to mobilise resources and by encouraging regional collective action. However, coaching and advisory services should attract more producers to participate in CMO measures. In addition, the co-financing system for measures in the Operational Programs of producer organisations should base the cofinancing percentage on the public value of the investments or activities. Both suggestions would potentially strengthen the producers' market position and possibilities for collaboration. Second, the administrative process for RDP funding was experienced as burdensome; thus, simplifications were suggested to encourage applications. Last, the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) operational groups and LEADER Local Action groups, which were regarded as useful for pursuing collectively region-specific objectives, should be promoted. extensive farmers, who also should be supported by developing quality labels for extensive farming products and investing in regional market chains. Third, the resilience of the extensive grazing system was constrained by limited access to land. This issue could partly be resolved by alleviating access to state-owned pastures, but also by investing in new technologies that use satellite data for monitoring access to and improving management of pastures. Fourth, new entrants to extensive farming should be supported through training programmes on farming practices and developing business plans, and by making part-time farming eligible under the young farmers scheme. Finally, the Spanish farming system's resilience would benefit from increased investments in public-private collaboration and rural development, especially to increase economic activity and employment possibilities.

Large-scale arable farming in East England -United Kingdom.
This workshop discussed how agricultural policy should look after Brexit in three different scenarios (Box 1). It was expected that all scenarios would reduce the resilience of the UK's farming system, especially due to an expected loss of subsidies. In addition, the no-deal and extreme free-trade scenarios would cause complications regarding EU trading tariffs and increased competition from cheaper imports. It was, therefore, recommended to increase domestic (financial) support, substituting CAP support, and to protect British farmers against lower food and production standards outside the UK. Furthermore, in case of a no-deal scenario, targeted support should protect smaller farms that perform relatively well in delivering ecosystem services. In addition, environmental work could be further encouraged by informing farmers about past successes with stewardship schemes, such as the Catchment Sensitive Farming scheme. Finally, concrete recommendations for improving resilience were: (1) support (new) farmers through independent advisory services, agricultural education and land access; (2) revert plant protection product assessments to being risk-based and providing solutions or alternatives ahead of withdrawing plant protection products; (3) create seasonal labour schemes; and (4) educate consumers about food production and farmers' countryside stewardship.

Comparison of the workshops
The co-design workshops revealed overlaps and variation in participants' ideas of how to improve the resilience capacities of their farming systems (Table 1). First, robustnessfocused policy recommendations were proposed in almost all workshops (except in the Dutch workshop). Whereas income support measures or coupled support were regarded as an option for increasing robustness in some workshops, it was argued in other workshops that income support measures, specifically the hectare-based payments, negatively affected adaptability and transformability. These findings were validated in the Brussels workshop and triggered discussion about coupled payments, which some experts regarded as an option for supporting extensive farming systems, while others argued that payments for ecosystem services would more clearly address the desired functions.

Box 1: Co-design workshops
The policy recommendations are the result of six co-design workshops conducted as part of the Horizon2020 SURE-Farm project. The aim of co-design is to develop policy recommendations in collaboration with national and regional agricultural policymakers and different stakeholders (farmers and farmers' representatives, agricultural advisors, representatives of environmental NGOs and researchers).
Participants were invited as experts and 'critical friends', not as representatives of specific interests, to reflect on previous findings from the SURE-Farm project and to share insights about and experiences with the CAP, its national implementations and policy recommendations in an open deliberation. Each workshop took one farming system as starting point and followed the same guideline, involving the following steps*: 1. Preparation: Literature reviews to explore good national policy practices for enabling resilience in agricultural sectors and beyond; providing insights into existing policy schemes and stimulating broader reflections on future agricultural policies. Second, all six co-design workshops developed policy recommendations for supporting adaptability. These recommendations focused mainly on increasing flexibility within supportive policy schemes, e.g. the RDP funding schemes, which would encourage farming system actors to apply for funding for innovative ideas more often. In addition, the policy recommendations aimed to encourage social processes that allow farming system actors to develop and exchange knowledge and promote collaborations (e.g. advisory services, training and education programmes, public-private collaborations).
Third, policy recommendations for supporting transformability were co-designed only in the Flemish, Dutch and Polish workshops. In all three workshops, the recommendation was that the CAP and its national implementation should provide a clear long-term vision of the future of agriculture with the aim to realise consistency between legislation and policies. The need for a coordinated long-term vision was confirmed during the workshop in Brussels. Such a vision could be initiated by joining up other policies to the CAP (e.g. nutrition and health policies, and climate and environmental policies), moving towards an integrated food and agriculture policy with a strong vertical dimension, i.e. co-ordination across different levels of government.

Key lessons learned from the workshops
Having compared the workshop results, we now reflect on three key lessons about the CAP's influence on resilience.
First, the ways in which the CAP and its national implementation schemes enable or constrain resilience strongly differ across different types of farming systems, depending on each system's characteristics, the regional context, the specific challenges and the national policy framework, including CAP implementation choices. As a result, the desirability of the three resilience capacities also differed across the case studies. Commissioner must secure qualified majorities in the Parliament and the Council. This makes it unlikely that a CAP reform will create a coordinated long-term vision unless the negotiations focus more on realising a shared understanding of challenges and the CAP's effects on farming systems' resilience. It is essential that the EU develops a clearer sense of the vulnerabilities of its farming systems along with innovative strategies to increase resilience through adaptability and transformability. This is much preferable to trying to maintain a status quo co-produced by historical policies that in major ways reinforce robustness.

Policy recommendations for improving resilience
This article started with the question of how the CAP could improve EU farming systems' resilience. We conclude by offering recommendations for the ongoing CAP reform round.
To enhance robustness, policies should support farming systems' capabilities to respond to shocks and stresses. However, focusing exclusively on robustness results in rather conservative policies with constraining effects on other resilience capacities. The proposed post-2020 CAP continues to prioritise income support via hectare-based payments. Income support might enhance robustness but cannot be justified on this ground beyond the minimum level required for robustness, as these payments can also have negative consequences on the resilience of some farming systems, e.g. increasing land prices, or creating inequality in received support. Support for robustness should be limited to a guaranteed maintenance of a basic floor for farming systems to fall back on during crises, for uninsurable systemic risks and for perturbations that cannot be absorbed by the farming system alone. This requires policies with a greater focus on anticipation, guided by foresight assessments and exercises to find concrete actions for how to respond to undesirable scenarios.
To enhance adaptability, policies should prioritise outcomes rather than means or the process for reaching adaptive objectives in the CAP. This would increase flexibility for farming system actors to decide how to reach the CAP's desired outcomes, while tailoring them to context-specific challenges and desirability. Whereas the current proposals suggest that the post-2020 CAP will remain meansoriented, it does offer considerable flexibility for Member States which will define their national priorities and implementation choices via the National Strategic Plans. Furthermore, the newly introduced eco-schemes increase possibilities for Member States to develop more performancebased schemes to support farmers undertaking climate and agrienvironmental activities. However, to really support adaptability, the flexibility in supportive policy schemes and the monitoring and control schemes should be increased, using flexible regulations and integrated inspections while safeguarding desired outcomes. Moreover, the CAP should encourage adaptive and innovative practices by including funding for projects rather than predefined measures; and multiple tiers of payment levels, for instance, aligned with private certification schemes of corresponding levels of ambition.
To enhance transformability, the CAP should be based on a coordinated vision for the future of Europe's agriculture. This vision should communicate norms and priorities that give directions for the desired future, supported by clear coherent policy objectives and instruments that reinforce rather than undermine each other. The recent adoption of the Farm-to-Fork Strategy, in which the European Commission introduces its plans for the transition towards a sustainable EU food system, can be considered a promising first step for offering such a longer-term perspective. However, it remains to be seen Farming systems are local networks of comparable types of farms and other actors that interact and are responsible for private and public goods in a specific regional context. © Eddy Teenstra/WUR Brand Portal Imagebank.
" It is essential that the EU develops a clearer sense of the vulnerabilities of its farming systems along with innovative strategies to increase resilience through adaptability and transformability.
" 70 ★ EuroChoices 19 (2) © 2020 The Authors. EuroChoices published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Agricultural Economics Society and European Association of Agricultural Economists whether and how the Farm-to-Fork Strategy will be aligned with the development of the National Strategic Plans and the overall CAP reform process. Furthermore, the CAP should stimulate deep learning and critical self-examination through specific instruments that enable dialogue and co-design; as well as encouraging out-of-the-box-thinking, for instance, by communicating about unconventional innovations and uncommon but successful farming practices. Programmes for rural cooperation in Pillar 2 (e.g. EIP-Agri and LEADER plus) play a key role in this regard and should therefore encourage integrated approaches across sectors and policy areas to enhance collaboration.
By developing policies that effectively reflect these lessons and recommendations, policymakers may succeed in developing a post-2020 CAP that will improve the resilience of Europe's farming systems.