Agriculture is a complex system in which the economic principles of production are directly intertwined with its biological and ecological characteristics. The paper investigates synergetic ...potentials of multiple-criteria and multiple-perspective evaluation of agricultural activity through a study of the dairy sector in Slovenia. Socio-economic and emergy evaluation was performed on nine farm types, formulated to represent the diversity of the country's dairy sector. The results indicate larger discrepancies in the performance of the farm types when defined by socio-economic or emergy based indicators. Standard socio-economic evaluation favours larger conventional systems that are cost efficient and financially independent. Emergy analysis however, favours less productive organic farms, which show greater ability to exploit free local resources and produce less stress on the local environment. Socio-economic and emergy indicators show that small conventional farm types are the poorest performers overall. Analysis of emergy flows reveals for all farm types a high dependency on the wider socio-economic system, suggesting that within the current economic system agriculture itself has little ability to affect its sustainability. The paper suggests a complementarity in the evaluation approaches. Their joint application can improve the quality of the decision-making process in various stages of planning in agriculture and land use.
•Socio-economic and emergy performance was assessed for nine dairy farm types.•Larger and intensive farm types perform favourably in socio-economic terms.•Smaller and organic farm types show better biophysical performance.•Integrated approach provides valuable inputs for agricultural and land use planning.•Improvement potentials are limited within the current economic system.
This paper describes the development of modeling tools to simulate the effects of agricultural policy changes in new member states (NMSs) of the European Union and presents results of a modeling ...exercise. Partial equilibrium models simulate policy change scenarios, such as accession to the European Union, as well as other policy developments and external conditions, such as changes in exchange or economic growth rates. Results show the effects of policy change on the main agricultural product markets for a ten-year horizon. In particular, NMSs gain from higher prices and budgetary support. Projections for most sectors show real improvements on recent production levels, but less so when compared with the production of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Accession supports orientation toward crop production, for which Central and East European countries (CEECs) become important net exporters. Livestock production would also benefit from accession, with beef and pork most likely to exhibit appreciable growth, driven by higher, postaccession prices. Production growth in the dairy sector is more limited under the accession scenario than under the baseline, due to milk quota introduction. Scenario results indicate that, in the aggregate, CEEC agriculture has less favorable growth potential if it remains outside the European Union and retains the policy instruments in place before accession.
In this perspective analysis, we strive to answer the following question: how can we advance integrative biology research in the 21st century with lessons from animal science? At the University of ...Ljubljana, Biotechnical Faculty, Department of Animal Science, we share here our three lessons learned in the two decades from 2002 to 2022 that we believe could inform integrative biology, systems science, and animal science scholarship in other countries and geographies. Cultivating multiomics knowledge through a conceptual lens of integrative biology is crucial for life sciences research that can stand the test of diverse biological, clinical, and ecological contexts. Moreover, in an era of the current COVID-19 pandemic, animal nutrition and animal science, and the study of their interactions with human health (and vice versa) through integrative biology approaches hold enormous prospects and significance for systems medicine and ecosystem health.
PDF
