Challenges and Opportunities for a Sustainable Agriculture in the Context of the Green and Digital Twin Transition. How Can We Increase the Resilience of the Agriculture in the Current Context?

Abstract

The climate changes and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic most recently have generated an increase interest and support for the topic of agricultural resilience. First of all the European Union Member States have discovered that the current pandemic has generated immense troubles in both the supply chains (that were often over extended and vulnerable) and the supply of the population inside the EU. This only added to the troubles generated already by climate changes (draughts, water shortages, extreme climate variations, etc.) All these acted like a wakeup call for the policy makers and other stakeholders. We have started to realise that we need to build up a resilient agricultural system that can sustain all the citizens involved. This resilience building process is a very complex and requires a lot of transversal actions and a whole-of-society approach. What is it needed? First of all we should innovate and train the farmers. Secondly we should developed the local and national infrastructure needed for agriculture. The use of financial instruments and institutional mechanisms are also needed to support the farmers. All these measure should be taken only after a thorough research process that draws a map of the realities in place, of the upcoming challenges and of the measures needed to solve them.

Keywords: resilience; agriculture; whole-of-society approach, innovation, training, foresight

JEL Classification: A10