A framework to analyse the resilience of EU farming systems

Due to a changing risk environment, resilience of European farming systems can no longer be taken for granted. In this paper we define resilience as maintaining the essential functions of EU farming systems in the face of increasingly complex and volatile economic, social, ecological and institutional risks. The aim of this paper is to develop a comprehensive resilience enabling framework for farming systems building on the concept of adaptive cycles. Three main adaptive cycle processes contributing to the essential functions of EU farming systems are considered: agricultural, farm demographics and governance processes. The framework distinguishes five phases: (1) characterising the farming system, (2) appraising key risks affecting the system, (3) framing the essential functions of the system, (4) assessing resilience over time along a spectrum of robustness, adaptability and transformability, and (5) identifying resilience attributes which contribute to the robustness, adaptability and transformability of the farming system. The framework can be applied by researchers to retrospectively understand the dynamics of sustainability of farming systems, and by decision makers to pro-actively identify differentiated resilience-enhancing strategies across EU farming systems depending on context-specific challenges and available resources. The framework is illustrated for arable farming in the Netherlands. Acknowledgement : This framework is developed and applied within the SURE-Farm (Towards SUstainable and REsilient EU FARMing systems) project, funded by Horizon 2020 (). We thank the whole consortium for their contributions to this framework