Update of a Quantitative Tool for Farm Systems Level Analysis of Agricultural Policies (EU-FARMS)

The main objective of the study was to develop and refine the farm type component of the agricultural sector model CAPRI (Common Agricultural Policy Regionalised Impact System) in order to obtain an operational system able to assess policy induced changes for different farming types across the Member States (MS) of the European Union (EU) before 1 January 2007 (EU-25). The first task is to update and complete the current farm module database of CAPRI. For that the most recent available databases should be utilised to cover at least the EU-25. This updated farm type database should include detailed information on farm structure for all Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) II regions across the EU-25. Task two aims to develop a typology and identify important associated typical farm types for each NUTS II region. Task three comprises the incorporation of the farm types into the existing EU-wide agricultural sector modelling framework CAPRI. Task four discusses the current advantages and shortcomings of the developed module and proposes further developments needed to refine it. Task five enhances the graphical exploitation tool for users, enabling the deployment of farm and spatial typologies for presentation and interpretation of results. Hence, the general objective was to achieve a tool able to analyse policy impacts at farm level, embedded into the CAPRI modelling system and therefore take advantage of common features from CAPRI, such as the link to a global agricultural sector model and a spatial, global multi-commodity market model for agricultural products.