Resilience Assessment tool (ResAT) to assess the capacity of policies to enhance the resilience of EU farming systems (Protocol)

The CAP and traditional national and subnational support systems for farms and farmers have supported the stability of European farming systems for decades. However, farming systems are now more likely to be affected by external shocks like price fluctuations and other external factors like climate change, water scarcity, biodiversity loss and other ecological stressors. This raises the question of whether the current configuration of EU and national policies supports or constrains the capacity of regional farming systems to resist external shocks or adjust to changing economic, social, environmental and institutional demands and circumstances.  

In the context of the post-2020 CAP, Member States will take important decisions on how much to invest in resilience supporting policies and choose between the three resilience strategies – robustness, adaptive capacity and transformative capacity – or a mix of them. This method can help evaluators understand the effects of CAP investments and reach conclusions that contribute to improving the targeting and mix of investment strategies (robustness, adaptability, transformability) with a view to improve the resilience of farming systems. 

The Resilience Assessment Tool is a useful tool for assessing how the CAP enhances or constrains the resilience of farming systems along the three dimensions of robustness, adaptability and transformability. It also assesses whether the CAP as a policy instrument creates synergies or trade-offs between the different resilience capabilities and how a good balance can be achieved.  

Findings from the SURE-Farm case studies demonstrate that resilience is a meaningful category for a more general analysis of CAP and farm related policies. One of the main findings from applying the tool in the case studies is that the CAP and its national implementations enhance the resilience of most farming systems. However, there is a clear bias of the CAP towards robustness while neglecting adaptability and transformability.  The main reason for this is that the bulk of resources go into payments that provide buffer resources for farms and enable the continuation of otherwise less profitable business models, thereby stabilising the status quo. Fewer resources are funnelled into measures that enhance adaptability; this occurs mainly through rural development programs and, in some cases, producer organisations.  

Several case studies suggest that details in the national or regional implementation of the CAP can make a significant difference in the resilience-enhancing effects. An interesting example is the decoupling of the historical direct payments in the case of the extensive grazing system in Spain, which, according to the analysis, weakened the robustness of the traditional farming system compared to the previously coupled premiums.