Thomas Fellmann

Regulating plant protection products (PPPs) near residential areas is a critical EU policy challenge, balancing public-health protection against food security. Although authorised after rigorous risk assessments, PPP use near homes raises public concern. We integrate high-resolution spatial data with an agro-economic model to assess impacts of residential buffer zones. Our findings show that 30% of EU agricultural land lies within 150 metres of residential areas, falling disproportionately on high-value, pesticide-intensive crops like fruits and grapes. Aggregate EU production changes remain minor under a 10-metre buffer (below 0.2%) and grow with buffer width (up to 4.5% at 150 metres), while agricultural income remains stable or rises modestly as prices increase for key crops. Buffer zones may thus deliver added health protection and public trust at limited aggregate cost but shift land-use pressure intra-EU and risk trade leakage. Our study offers a framework that makes these trade-offs explicit and transferable beyond Europa.

In Europe, excessive nutrient pollution in freshwater and marine ecosystems poses a significant threat to human uses of water resources and disrupts aquatic ecosystems, compromising essential ecosystem services. The effectiveness of existing EU policies aimed at mitigating nutrient pollution will be influenced by the combined impact of climate variability and change. It remains uncertain whether current policies will suffice to reduce nutrient pollution to levels compatible with good environmental conditions in freshwaters and coastal waters. This study quantifies nitrogen and phosphorus fluxes in European freshwater systems and their delivery to the sea, considering the effects of existing EU policies and climate change up to 2050. Using the GREEN model, we simulated total nitrogen and phosphorus loads from 1990 to 2021 and projected future changes until 2050 using climate projections from 11 regional climate models (EURO-CORDEX) under the RCP 4.5 scenario. Our results indicate that implementing current EU policies—Common Agricultural Policy, Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive, FitFor55 package for climate neutrality—will reduce nutrient loads to European seas by 2050, with a 10% decrease in nitrogen and 8% decrease in phosphorus loads compared to 2020 values, albeit with significant uncertainty related to climate variability. Regional differences are also explored. Nutrient concentrations in the EU river network are expected to decrease slightly, as well as the potential risk for coastal eutrophication (ICEP index). However, further reductions of 10%–20% beyond existing policies may be necessary to achieve good conditions in large rivers. These reductions could come from improved agricultural practices, nature-based solutions and wetland restoration. Our study suggests that while current measures will lead to improvements by 2050, additional efforts will be required in some regions to achieve good environmental conditions, highlighting the need for integrated nutrient management to avoid imbalances between nitrogen and phosphorus in receiving waters.

Natural pest control is a crucial regulating ecosystem service for sustaining crop yields while lowering pesticide use. Its effectiveness depends on landscape complexity, particularly the amount and spatial arrangement of semi-natural habitats, in and around fields, that support natural enemies. We provide a 50 m-resolution, pan-European map of NPC potential that updates and refines the model of Rega et al . (2018). The workflow merges Copernicus High-Resolution Layers for 2018 - Tree Cover Density, Grasslands and Woody Vegetation Mask (5–10 m source grids) - with empirical coefficients from extensive field surveys. Morphological spatial pattern analysis distinguishes linear from areal habitat elements, capturing their contrasting ecological functions: linear features improve connectivity for enemy movement, whereas areal patches offer stable refugia and resources. All scripts and configuration files are openly released, allowing straightforward reruns with future Copernicus updates or with analogous land-cover products outside Europe. The resulting NPC index maps spatial variation in habitat composition, abundance and proximity to cropland, providing an indicator for planning and management from continental to local scales.

Future trajectories of agricultural productivity need to incorporate environmental targets, including the reduction of pesticides use. Landscape features supporting natural pest control (LF-NPC) offer a nature-based solution that can serve as a partial substitute for synthetic pesticides, thereby supporting future productivity levels. Here, we introduce a novel approach to quantify the contribution of LF-NPC to agricultural yields and its associated economic value to crop production in a broad-scale context. Using the European Union as case study, we combine granular farm-level data, a spatially explicit map of LF-NPC potential, and a regional agro-economic supply and market model. The results reveal that farms located in areas characterized by higher LF-NPC potential experience lower productivity losses in a context of reduced synthetic pesticides use. Our analysis suggests that LF-NPC reduces yield gaps on average by four percentage points, and increases income by a similar magnitude. These results highlight the significance of LF-NPC for agricultural production and income, and provide a valuable reference point for farmers and policymakers aiming to successfully invest in landscape features to achieve pesticides reduction targets.

Summary: Research in the area of agro‐economic modelling has been one of the key contributions of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) to the development of better agri‐food policies in the EU. This article provides an overview of the development of the JRC's integrated agro‐economic modelling platform since its establishment in 2005. We highlight the main contributions to policy analysis and describe in detail two key areas, namely the provision of medium‐term projections for agricultural markets and the analysis of various CAP proposals. Furthermore, we describe the gradual shift to expand the capabilities of individual models within the platform to encompass aspects beyond traditional agro‐economic aspects and incorporate environmental considerations. Model integration remains a focus both within the platform at different levels and scales, and in conjunction with biophysical models. This, together with incorporating knowledge from other fields of economic analysis is fundamental to capture changing policy objectives.

This paper analyses how climate change might impact EU agricultural markets by mid-century, considering a large ensemble of climate change projections from different models, market adjustments and trade feedbacks. Applying consistent climate change driven productivity shocks to a global multi-commodity agricultural market model we show that the negative direct effects from climate change on crop production in the EU could be offset by market and trade adjustments. The simulations reveal that climate change has heterogeneous impacts across regions. EU farming sector, in particular, might actually benefit from climate change as the impacts on agricultural productivity are expected to be more severe in important non-EU production regions such as US, Russia and Ukraine, depending on the crop. Higher producer prices for important crops such as wheat, barley, grain maize, rice and soybeans, lead to an increase in EU production and exports. For instance EU wheat production could increase by 13% and exports by 28%, with 19% higher farm incomes on average than in a business-as-usual situation. Our study has several limitations. In particular, we do not consider CO2 fertilization effects and direct effect from climate change on livestock sector, climate variability and extreme weather effects. Notwithstanding, our findings highlight the heterogeneity of climate change impacts across regions, specifically Northern versus Southern Europe, and the importance of market and trade adjustments as economic adaptation mechanisms to climate change.

Future trajectories of agricultural productivity need to incorporate environmental targets, including the reduction of pesticides use. Landscape features supporting natural pest control (LF-NPC) offer a nature-based solution that can serve as a partial substitute for synthetic pesticides, thereby supporting future productivity levels. Here, we introduce a novel approach to quantify the contribution of LF-NPC to agricultural yields and its associated economic value to crop production in a broad-scale context. Using the European Union as case study, we combine granular farm-level data, a spatially explicit map of LF-NPC potential across agricultural land, and a regional agro-economic supply and market model. The results reveal that farms located in areas characterized by higher LF-NPC potential experience lower productivity losses in a context of reduced synthetic pesticides use. Specifically, we estimate that a one-unit increase in LF-NPC potential, on average, leads to a 6.1% increase in agricultural income. These results highlight the significance of LF-NPC for agricultural production, and provide a valuable reference point for farmers and policymakers aiming to successfully invest in landscape features to achieve pesticides reduction targets.