Why MIND STEP?

MIND STEP addresses the Work Programme Topic RUR-04-2018-2019, contributing to Rural Renaissance by further developing analytical tools and models to support policies related to agriculture and food. A. [2018] Developing new models supporting policies related to agriculture.

Agricultural policies like the EU CAP are widening the scope to contribute to the Paris climate agreement and the Sustainability Development Goals. From the Commission's legislative proposals (June 2018) it is expected that the European Union (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will be redesigned in line with this. Consequences are among others a move of the CAP to farm specific measures and an improved link to environment, climate change and ecosystem services. It is proposed that Member States and regions develop their own CAP strategic plan with more attention to the regional implementation of the CAP. This wider scope and measures with a focus on individual farmers ask for a new generation of impact assessment tools. Current state-of-the-art agricultural models are not able to deliver individual farm and local effects as they are specified at higher levels of aggregation.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

The overall ambition of MIND STEP is to support public decision making in agricultural, rural, environmental and climate policies, taking into account the behaviour of individual decision-making units in agriculture and the rural society.

The MIND STEP specific objectives are

to develop a highly modular and customisable suite of Individual Decision Making (IDM) models focussing on behaviour of individual agents in the agricultural sector to better analyse impacts of policies,
to develop linkages between the new IDM models and current models used at the European Commission to improve the consistency and to broaden the scope of the analysis of policies,
to develop an integrated data framework to support analysis and monitoring of policies related to agriculture,
to apply the MIND STEP model toolbox to analyse regional and national policies and selected EU CAP reform options and global events affecting the IDM farming unit, working together with policymakers, farmers and other stakeholders,
to safeguard the governance and future exploitation of the MIND STEP model toolbox.

INTENDED IMPACTS

improvement of the capacity to model policies dealing with agriculture and related natural resources, food and international trade
improvement of policy design, impact assessments and monitoring
strengthened transdisciplinary research and integrated scientific support for relevant EU policies and priorities.