CH-FARMIS 2.0: A Sector-Model to Assess the Economic and Environmental Impacts of Swiss Direct Payment Schemes

Summary in the original language of the document

Quantitative sector models are an essential tool to forecast the sector-wide economic effects of agricultural policies. However, to cover ecological effects with economic sector models is still a methodological challenge. This poster describes a promising approach, which is currently implemented at the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) to meet this challenge.
CH-FARMIS is a sector consistent farm group model, which is able to forecast economic impacts of policies on farm, regional and sector-level. In a flexible way, CH-FARMIS is able to split up the farm sector in farm groups according to various characteristics (region, farming system, farm type, etc.). CH-FARMIS is based on positive mathematical programming (PMP) to allow for a realistic reproduction of the Swiss agricultural sector. Currently, CH-FARMIS is augmented in two ways in order to illustrate the environmental impacts of farmers’ decisions and land use: Firstly, intensity levels of farm production are introduced. Secondly, all farm activities and their intensity levels are equipped with ecological indicators, which are derived from LCA data. In an iterative Delphi-procedure, polling a set of competence teams, the LCA data is adapted to the model needs and transposed from farm level to sector level. The following indicators will be implemented in CH-FARMIS 2.0: Biodiversity, water contamination (N, P) and energy use.
The enlarged version of CH-FARMIS will be a flexible tool which can be used for both exante assessments of policy reforms and the quantitative evaluation of single direct payments. CH-FARMIS 2.0 is planned to be operable in mid 2008.