The method uses the concepts of critical and interacting thresholds to challenge stakeholders in a workshop setting to think about potential non-linear and undesired behavior of their farming system. Following, stakeholders are elicited on desired alternative systems that avoid critical thresholds and thus improve sustainability and resilience . The method is flexible regarding: a. the information sources used as input for the workshop, b. the possibility to include case specific indicators and c. the stakeholder input during the workshop, i.e. alternation of individual input, small group discussions and plenary discussions. We illustrate the usefulness of the approach with an application to the extensive sheep farming system in Huesca, Spain. In this farming system, ongoing, interrelated economic, social as well as environmental developments are increasingly reducing the system’s sustainability and resilience. The proposed methodology presented in this paper extends the Framework of Participatory Impact Assessment for Sustainable and Resilient EU farming systems approach for assessing sustainability and resilience of current systems with participatory assessments on resilience of EU farming systems in the future . FoPIASURE-Farm 1 and 2 are based on the SURE-Farm resilience framework : 1) defining and delineating the farming system, 2) identifying main challenges, 3) assessing farming system functions, 4) assessing the system’s resilience capacities , and 5) assessing the system’s resilience enhancing attributes . While FoPIA-SURE-Farm 1 was mainly aimed at performance levels of main indicators, that represent main functions of the system, and resilience attributes, FoPIA-SURE-Farm 2 includes resilience concepts such as critical thresholds, interactions between thresholds , nft channel and regime shifts . In this paper we define the basis of a farming system as the farms producing the main products of interest in a regional context. Farming system actors included in the farming systems are the producers of main products and other actors that mutually influence one another.
The perceived complementarity of sustainability and resilience is operationalized by distinguishing system challenges, function indicators and resilience attributes. In the context of resilience, challenges relate to the question “resilience to what?”, such as resilience to weather extremes . Function indicators are case-study specific representatives for important system functions, such as “Food production” or “Maintaining natural resources”, as direct metrics for those functions are often not available . In the context of resilience, function indicators relate to the question “resilience for what?”. This relates to sustainability, which is defined as an adequate performance of all system functions across the environmental, economic and social domain . Resilience attributes are characteristics that convey general resilience to a system . These resilience attributes can often be linked to system resources , e.g. natural or social capital, that can only be maintained when system functions are performing adequately. To improve the flexibility of the methodology and the clarity and saliency of participatory input, just like for functions, case-study specific indicators may be used for resilience attributes, as well as for challenges. Based on workshop results, inductions are made about the resilience capacities of the studied farming system . For more details on the concepts used in this study, see Appendix A. FoPIA-SURE-Farm 2 consists of a preparation phase, a participatory workshop and an evaluation phase, and was developed for application and comparison across 11 EU farming systems . In this paper we present six key steps of the methodology . In Step 1, current performance and trends of function indicators and resilience attributes are assessed by the research team in the preparation phase. This assessment can be largely based on FoPIA-SURE-Farm 1 , but other literature can also be used. In Step 2, critical thresholds of important system challenges, function indicators and resilience attributes are assessed by workshop participants. Based on Biggs et al. and Kinzig et al. , we define critical thresholds as the levels at which challenges, function indicators or resilience attributes are expected to cause large and permanent system change. System’s closeness to thresholds is consequently evaluated by the research team based on participants’ comments and literature, e.g. based on ongoing trends identified in Step 1. In Step 3, performance of main function indicators and resilience attributes is assessed when critical thresholds of main challenges would be exceeded.
Possibilities of interacting thresholds can be discussed during the workshop and in the evaluation phase, following the framework of Kinzig et al. . Interacting thresholds are thresholds, that, when exceeded, lead to the exceedance of another threshold, i.e. there are cascading effects. In summary, Step 1, 2 and 3 provide an overview of possible system performance in case no adaptations for improved sustainability and resilience are made. Keeping the sustainability and resilience of the current system and the impact of exceeding critical thresholds as a point of reference, Step 4 addresses possible desired changes of the farming system towards the future. Participants can indicate and discuss what alternative systems are possible when challenges would become more severe, and when/how certain function indicators and resilience attributes would improve compared to the current system configuration. Step 5 aims to gain information on the strategies that are needed to realize alternative systems. We indicate these strategies as “future strategies”. Steps 2 to 5 correspond largely to the participatory workshop phase. In the workshop, individual, break-out and plenary sessions are alternated. Individual and break-out sessions are included to ensure that all participants can provide input, which can be used as input for further discussions in plenary sessions. The proposed session format in each step can be changed according to needs of the participants, as long as a balance between individual, break-out and plenary sessions is maintained. In Step 6, in the evaluation phase, researchers evaluate whether desired future systems, i.e. the current system maintained in the future and the alternative systems, are compatible with developments in Shared Social Pathways for European agriculture and hence match exogenous developments at European level. The time horizon for the future is 2030 in all steps. In the next sections we present details of each of the six steps. A pre-selection is made of most important system function indicators and resilience attributes, their qualitative description of performance and developments . Step 1 can be based on FoPIA-SURE-Farm and/or other information sources. Participants individually evaluate the existence of critical thresholds related to function indicators, resilience attributes and challenges . Walker and Salt mention that it is impossible to determine critical thresholds for resilience attributes because they all interact. However, we include resilience attributes as it stimulates thinking about resilience. Moreover, participatory input on thresholds can be interpreted as formulations of potential concerns for which management goals and strategies may be developed . In plenary sessions, individual input is discussed.
Participants are free to discuss and conclude on the relative closeness of their system to critical thresholds. In case closeness of the system to critical thresholds is not indicated by participants, the research team evaluates closeness based on the current performance levels, and magnitude of variation and/or trends. “Not close”, “somewhat close” and “close” to thresholds are defined as respectively unlikely, somewhat likely and likely that the distance to critical thresholds will be trespassed in the coming ten years, based on knowledge on possible variation and/or trends. A fourth category is identified as current levels being already at or beyond the critical threshold . Per identified main challenge, it is evaluated in a participatory forecasting approach what the effect of a change beyond the indicated thresholds would be on main indicators and resilience attributes . For this, the group is split in small groups of participants, each discussing one challenge. First, the expected direction of change of the challenge is clarified. Secondly, the relation between challenge and function indicator or resilience attribute is discussed. In each group, a moderator synthesizes this with a score of –, -, +-, + and ++ alongside arrows from challenges to function indicators and resilience attributes. A + relation implies that if the level of the challenge increases, the function indicator or resilience attribute also increases . Verifications are also made in relation to possible interactions among and between function indicators and resilience attributes. Optionally, the expected impact on the function indicator or resilience attribute is indicated. This impact is scored referring to the expected performance level from 1 to 5, similar to FoPIA-SURE-Farm 1 . In a plenary session, each moderator feeds back the results of the small group in a 1-minute pitch, after which participants can respond. Based on the outcome of questions on critical thresholds and forecasting the impacts of exceeding them, the possibility of interacting critical thresholds is evaluated by researchers in the evaluation phase using the framework of Kinzig et al. . Kinzig et al. specifically assess critical thresholds and cascading effects across scales for alternative future states of agricultural regions. Kinzig et al. distinguish the ecological, as well as the economic and social/cultural domain across the patch, farm and region scale. A good balance between developments in the different domains and levels may improve sustainability and resilience of a system . In systems with strong interactions between system variables at lower levels, vulnerability of the system at the focal level may increase . This is especially the case when variables at lower levels are all aligned with regard to their closeness to critical thresholds . An simultaneous exceedance of critical thresholds at lower levels may result in further cascading effects and ultimately result in an alternative, undesired system state at focal level, hydroponic nft which in this study is the farming system. In the context of this paper we distinguish the environmental, economic and social domains and the field, farm and farming system levels.
In a forecasting approach for improved sustainability, results are largely based on dominant trends and causal mechanisms that often lead to low sustainability. Solutions for improved sustainability, therefore, ideally need to break these trends and causal mechanisms . In this part of the workshop, we therefore shift from a forecasting approach to a back casting approach. A back casting approach has greater problem-solving capacities in long term challenges, because it is concerned less with what is likely to happen and more with what is desirable in the future . Picturing future systems may stimulate system actors to widen their perspectives and improve their understanding of the concept of sustainability . In this study, the back casting approach is focused on alternative farming systems that have improved performance of function indicators and resilience attributes . To identify these alternative systems, all participants are asked to write on post-its alternative systems they desire if challenges cross thresholds and/or functions need improvement. This ensures that stakeholders can give their own input and are not directly influenced by others. If input is low, thinking can be stimulated among participants by presenting alternative systems that are identified by the research team in the preparation phase. Based on the post-its, several alternative future systems are identified in a plenary session. These alternative systems may be combinations of suggestions of different participants. Some may be adaptations and some transformations of the current system. After giving them a name, per alternative system, one small group of participants is formed to further discuss which main function indicators and resilience attributes will change. In addition, changes in land use, sectors, objectives and other relevant aspects may be discussed. Participants in small groups also discuss the enabling conditions, i.e. how challenges and other drivers should change in order to be able to reach these alternative systems. Small groups consist of at least one moderator from the research team and three participants. In the evaluation phase, enabling conditions are categorized by researchers under the following domains: agronomic, economic, environmental, institutional, social. Taking alternative systems as the points of reference, the back casting approach is continued by identifying strategies to realize the alternative systems, in the small groups. A strategy is seen and communicated to workshop participants as a “plan of action, or part of it, implemented by actors within and outside the farming system to maintain or reach a desired farming system in 2030”.