This study assesses the potential market effects of aligning production standards applied to imported agricultural products with EU requirements, focusing specifically on reducing maximum residue levels for the most hazardous pesticides banned in the EU to the analytical limit of quantification. The analysis provides a range of plausible effects on agricultural markets and trade resulting from stricter import standards. The study emphasises that stronger alignment could affect production costs, import prices, trade flows and the competitiveness of EU agricultural sectors, but also stresses substantial uncertainty because detailed information on pesticide use and substitution costs at the active-substance, commodity and country level is limited. Importantly, the report is not a full impact assessment because environmental and social dimensions are outside its scope.

further assessing the potential economic, environmental, and social consequences before implementing stronger alignment requirements, particularly by improving information on pesticide use, substitution possibilities, and production costs in exporting countries. Policymakers should use the estimated effects as plausible ranges rather than point forecasts and complement economic modelling with evidence on environmental and health benefits. Any future policy should therefore balance the objective of preventing the re-entry of pesticides banned in the EU through imports with potential effects on trade, prices, producers, and consumers.

This note examines how a prolonged energy price shock following the conflict in the Middle East could affect EU households across the income distribution. It considers the wider price pressures likely to emerge over the coming months as rising fuel costs pass through to electricity, heating, food, and other goods, particularly if oil and gas prices remain elevated beyond the official forecast. It brings together four models into detailed sectoral price changes using FIDELIO, JRC-GEM-E3, AGLINK-COSIMO, and feed these price changes into EUROMOD to trace their effect on household budgets. The results show that the price shock is regressive: lower income households face higher price increases and devote a larger share of their income to the goods most affected, so the burden falls disproportionately on them, and more so the longer the shock persists.

targeted support, since the burden falls hardest on lower-income households, and close monitoring should the shock persist.

This paper examines how the identification of a farm successor affects farmers' management decisions and whether the succession effect differs according to the successor's gender and involvement in farm operations. Using survey data from 559 farmers in Poland and Italy and count-data regression models, the study finds that identifying a successor significantly increases the adoption of management practices. Female successors are associated particularly with innovation and diversification, whereas male successors are more strongly associated with integration strategies. Importantly, the succession effect materialises mainly when the successor is already involved in farm management, indicating that both certainty of succession and early participation in the farm are important drivers of investment and structural change.

extending existing support for young and new farmers to the period before formal farm succession and incentivising potential successors to become involved in farm management at an early stage. Policies should also recognise gender-specific barriers and preferences, including potential disadvantages faced by female successors in accessing training, cooperation, and particular farming strategies. Supporting incumbent farmers as well as successors could help exploit the succession effect to accelerate farm modernisation, diversification, and innovation.

This report develops an operational framework for stress-testing the EU food system against complex and potentially cascading shocks. It adopts a multidimensional concept of food security encompassing availability, physical and economic access, nutritional utilisation, stability, sustainability, and human agency. The framework combines systems thinking, scenario-based foresight, supply-chain mapping, and disruption analysis to identify vulnerabilities and assess how shocks can propagate across the food system. It also emphasises iterative cooperation between scientific experts and stakeholders, allowing analytical modelling to be complemented by practical knowledge from food-system actors. The overall objective is to move EU food-security policy from reactive crisis management towards anticipatory resilience building.

institutionalising regular stress testing of the EU food system, using multidimensional food-security indicators and a broad range of climate, geopolitical and economic scenarios. It also recommends strengthening cooperation between policymakers, researchers, and private-sector stakeholders, systematically mapping critical supply chains and vulnerabilities, and using scenario exercises to identify cascading risks before crises occur. Such an approach would allow the EU to develop proactive resilience measures rather than relying on emergency responses after disruptions materialise.

This report analyses land-access dynamics throughout the farm-succession process using Farm Accountancy Data Network data for Belgium's Walloon Region, Ireland and Poland covering 2009–2023. It distinguishes between the retirement effect, whereby farmers without successors reduce their activity; the succession effect, whereby an identified successor encourages investment and land expansion before transfer; and the successor effect, whereby the new farmer changes farm structure after installation. The results show that identifying a successor tends to prevent farm contraction and encourage land expansion, while new farmers initially face financial constraints that limit their ability to acquire additional land. New non-inherited farms start with particularly limited land resources, and female new farmers face stronger barriers to land expansion.

designing land-access policies according to the stage of the farm succession process, rather than applying uniform support throughout the farm life cycle. New farmers, particularly women and those establishing non-inherited farms, should receive targeted support during the first years after installation, combining access to land with access to capital. The report also recommends considering synergies between land and capital policies and extending support to identified successors and incumbent farmers before formal succession, since succession expectations already stimulate land expansion and investment.

This report assesses the potential of gene-edited biological nitrogen-fixation technologies to reduce nitrogen surpluses in EU agriculture. It combines a literature review with quantitative economic analysis to examine the agronomic, environmental, and economic conditions under which genetically modified microorganisms capable of biological nitrogen fixation could become viable. The results indicate that higher nitrogen prices and a greater societal valuation of nitrogen reductions increase the probability that the technology becomes economically viable. At the same time, market feedback can reduce farm-level income gains through lower agricultural prices. Despite these trade-offs, the technology consistently reduces nitrogen surpluses across most EU regions, highlighting substantial mitigation potential.

continued research and development of gene-edited biological nitrogen-fixation technologies while developing regulatory and economic frameworks that account simultaneously for farmer profitability, nitrogen reduction, and market-wide effects. Policymakers should consider incentives reflecting the environmental value of nitrogen reductions and carefully assess the market implications of widespread adoption. Further empirical evidence on agronomic performance, costs and farmer adoption is also needed before large-scale deployment.

This study quantifies the contribution of livestock-related activities to the EU bioeconomy. In 2023, livestock value chains generated approximately €256 billion in value added, representing around 30% of total biomass-producing and biomass-converting activities in the EU. Primary livestock production accounted for approximately €91 billion, food manufacturing for €108 billion, leather for €10 billion and bio-based chemicals and pharmaceuticals for €47 billion. Between 2013 and 2023, livestock-related value added increased from €150 billion to €256 billion, with particularly rapid growth in downstream chemicals and pharmaceuticals. The importance of livestock varies among Member States, reflecting differences in specialisation and downstream processing capacity.

recognising livestock value chains as a key component of the EU bioeconomy when designing bioeconomy, agricultural, industrial, and rural-development policies. Policy should support higher-value and resource-efficient uses of livestock-derived biomass, strengthen links between primary production and downstream bio-based industries, and account for substantial differences in national specialisation. Better integration of livestock statistics into bioeconomy monitoring would also help policymakers assess the sector's economic contribution and its potential transition towards higher-value bio-based applications.

This paper examines the long-term relationship between public agricultural R&D investment, productivity growth, food security, and environmental sustainability. Using the MAGNET global computable general equilibrium model, it first projects productivity developments under alternative assumptions about future public agricultural R&D and then examines a shift in research priorities from yield maximisation towards input-saving technologies, particularly technologies reducing fertiliser and pesticide use. The results indicate that China, India, and Brazil are likely to experience strong productivity gains from agricultural R&D, while Sub-Saharan Africa faces lower productivity growth and rising emissions. In high-income countries, particularly the EU, redirecting R&D towards input-saving technologies could make productivity growth more sustainable, although some reductions in agricultural production and increases in food prices may occur.

revitalising public agricultural R&D and redirecting a greater share of research towards technologies that save environmentally sensitive inputs while maintaining productivity. However, the authors stress that technology strategies should be tailored to regional conditions rather than applied uniformly worldwide. Policymakers should also remove barriers to innovation and adoption, support digital and capital-intensive technologies, and strengthen international research partnerships, particularly in regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa where low agricultural R&D capacity threatens future productivity and sustainability.

This paper investigates the mechanisms behind the growth of global agricultural greenhouse gas emissions by decomposing changes in emissions into output growth, emissions per unit of input and total factor productivity (TFP). Using country-level agricultural and emissions data over 1961–2021, the authors show that global agricultural production increased by around 270%, while agricultural GHG emissions increased by approximately 45%. Productivity growth has consistently been one of the principal forces slowing emissions growth, with rising land productivity playing a particularly significant role in reducing emissions intensity. The results demonstrate that agricultural productivity improvements can facilitate a degree of decoupling between food production and environmental impacts, although productivity gains alone do not eliminate the growth of agricultural emissions.

placing productivity growth and technological innovation at the centre of agricultural climate-mitigation strategies, particularly by promoting technologies that increase output without proportionally increasing resource use and emissions. Policies should support agricultural R&D, innovation and productivity-enhancing investments while simultaneously strengthening incentives to reduce emissions intensity. The findings also suggest that productivity policy should be complemented by direct environmental measures, since productivity gains can slow emissions growth but cannot by themselves guarantee absolute reductions in agricultural GHG emissions.

This paper assesses how a transformation towards healthier and more sustainable food systems could reshape global agriculture by 2050. Using an ensemble of ten global economic models, the authors combine three major changes: adoption of a healthy diet consistent with the EAT–Lancet reference diet, improvements in agricultural productivity and a halving of food waste. The scenario produces a substantial restructuring of global agriculture, with median agricultural land use around 6% below 2020 levels and agricultural production 17% below the business-as-usual 2050 projection. Livestock production is particularly affected, with its projected value 49–83% below the baseline, while the value of fruit, vegetables, nuts, and legumes increases by around 23%. The results highlight substantial environmental and health benefits but also major distributional and political-economy consequences for farmers, sectors, and regions.

that food policy take a more active role in facilitating the transition towards healthier and more sustainable diets while anticipating the structural adjustment of agriculture. Policymakers should combine dietary policies with measures that improve agricultural productivity and reduce food loss and waste, while providing appropriate transition support to farmers and sectors—particularly livestock producers—whose production and incomes could decline. The transition should be initiated well before 2050 and designed to address affordability, accessibility, consumer behaviour, and the political economy of structural change, ensuring that environmental and health benefits are achieved without disproportionately harming agricultural livelihoods.

This paper investigates how El Niño and La Niña episodes affect food prices across countries and commodities. It combines a large panel dataset of monthly retail food prices with climatic indicators capturing El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events and applies local-projection methods to estimate price responses for up to one year following a climate shock. The results show substantial heterogeneity: the magnitude, duration and direction of food-price responses vary according to the ENSO event, geographical region, and commodity. The findings demonstrate that climate shocks affect food markets not only through agricultural production and yields but also through the transmission of shocks along food supply chains and into consumer prices.

strengthening food-price monitoring and early-warning systems so that policymakers can anticipate the market effects of major climate cycles; incorporating ENSO-related risks into food-security assessments and contingency planning; and designing targeted measures to protect vulnerable consumers and producers in regions and commodity markets that are particularly sensitive to climate shocks. The heterogeneity of responses also suggests that climate-related food-security policies should be geographically and commodity specific rather than relying on uniform interventions.

This paper evaluates the economic effects of reducing non-tariff measures (NTMs) under the African Continental Free Trade Area using the MAGNET recursive-dynamic computable general equilibrium model. A key innovation is treating regulatory spillovers from harmonised standards as public goods rather than assuming that their benefits are confined to bilateral trade relationships. The results indicate that NTM reforms can generate welfare gains larger than those from tariff reductions, with spillovers producing gains up to 16 times larger than tariff cuts. However, greater regulatory integration can also reinforce Africa's comparative advantage in primary commodities and crowd out domestic manufacturing, creating a tension between aggregate efficiency and industrialisation.

moving beyond tariff liberalisation towards ambitious but strategically sequenced NTM harmonisation, while adopting a “positive integration” approach that complements regulatory convergence with policies that build productive capacity. Adjustment mechanisms and targeted support should be provided to sectors and countries exposed to de-industrialisation pressures, while regulatory harmonisation should be prioritised where it generates the greatest efficiency gains. This combination would allow AfCFTA to capture the large welfare benefits of regulatory integration without undermining the continent's industrialisation objectives.

This report provides the first comprehensive assessment of the Living Income Gap among cocoa-producing households in Cameroon, based on a representative survey of 4,294 cocoa-farming households. It finds that around 68% of cocoa-producing households earn below the Living Income Benchmark of FCFA 277,136 per month for a household of 5.2 people. Low productivity, limited access to inputs and services and low farm-gate prices are the principal factors explaining the gap. The study estimates that a reference cocoa price of FCFA 3,567 per kilogram, combined with higher yields, could improve household incomes. It also examines complementary strategies involving productivity, market access, income diversification, credit, insurance, and sustainable production.

prioritising measures that raise the prices received by cocoa farmers, including price-floor mechanisms, premium payments, and transparent pricing arrangements, while simultaneously improving productivity through better inputs, mechanisation, farming practices, and post-harvest processing. It also recommends strengthening certification and contract farming, improving access to credit and crop insurance, and promoting off-farm income diversification. Finally, sustainable practices and agroforestry should be supported to increase resilience, maintain productivity, and reduce deforestation and environmental degradation.

This paper examines how long-term climate risk influences smallholder farmers' decisions to use inorganic fertilisers, organic fertilisers, and pesticides in Western Africa. Using a large panel covering eight West African countries, the study applies Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood estimation with correlated random effects and hurdle models to distinguish between the decision to adopt an input and the intensity of use among adopters. The results show that precipitation scarcity is particularly important. It reduces both the probability and intensity of pesticide use and lowers fertiliser adoption, although farmers who continue using fertilisers tend to increase their application intensity. Other measures of climate risk are not statistically significant.

strengthening climate-risk management and adaptation measures that enable smallholders to maintain access to agricultural inputs under increasingly uncertain rainfall conditions. Policies should particularly address the constraints that prevent farmers from adopting fertilisers and crop-protection products when precipitation becomes scarce, including access to finance, insurance, extension services, and climate information. Improving the resilience of input markets and supporting climate-adapted production technologies would help prevent climate risk from translating into persistent under-utilisation of productive inputs.

This study assesses the implications of the major shift in US trade policy for African economies in the context of AfCFTA. It considers several scenarios combining higher US tariffs, retaliation by trading partners, a potential US–China trade war and deeper African integration. The modelling indicates that the direct impact of US tariffs on African economies is limited, but indirect effects can be larger because high US tariffs on Chinese products divert Chinese exports towards other markets and alter global competitive conditions. The analysis therefore highlights Africa's vulnerability to external trade shocks and the importance of strengthening intra-African trade and investment.

accelerating and implementing AfCFTA in an ambitious manner to reduce Africa's dependence on external markets and strengthen its resilience to changes in global trade policy. Policymakers should promote intra-African trade and investment, deepen regional value chains, and improve Africa's collective bargaining position in international trade negotiations. Further continental integration is particularly important for reducing the exposure of African economies to trade diversion and geopolitical shocks originating outside the continent.

This report assesses the potential of artificial intelligence and large language models to semi-automate the systematic assessment of the impacts of invasive alien species (IAS). The GPT Scheduler pipeline was used to process and analyse information on 498 IAS affecting 27 different activity domains. The results demonstrate that AI can increase the efficiency of literature screening and extraction of contextualised information, while also showing that expert involvement remains essential. The analysis identifies important limitations related to data quality, algorithmic bias, reproducibility, and the interpretation of complex scientific information. The study therefore presents AI as a tool for supporting, rather than replacing, expert assessment.

using AI-assisted workflows to increase the scale and efficiency of invasive-species assessments while maintaining expert validation and quality control. Policymakers and scientific agencies should establish procedures for monitoring data quality, identifying algorithmic biases and validating AI-generated classifications and evidence. The approach could be replicated and expanded for systematic IAS assessments, but deployment should remain embedded within transparent, expert-led assessment frameworks rather than treating automated outputs as definitive evidence.