The ecosystem and the economic subsystem are interlinked. In fact, it is the overconsumption of scarce resources or the overproduction of bad outputs at economic system level that causes a great part of the imbalances at the ecosystem level. Some imbalances do not originate at the economic...

There is a high potential for simultaneously increasing sustainability of the earth system and economic development by removing inefficiencies currently present both at the production input and output side. In this paper a static view on sustainability is employed, by introducing capacity...

institutions of sustainability (PIoS), which are sets of rules that a series of private actors voluntary follow to reach a sustainability target. Within PIoS, a strong position on sustainability themes is used as a mean to maximize private utility. Consequently, there is a potential win-win...

In their continuous quest for ecologic improvements, private voluntary certification initiatives might undermine the willingness to continue of the participating farmers. In this research, the ecologic contribution and the farmers’ acceptance of changing the pesticide policy of a private...

The impact of current nitrate policy measures in Flanders is estimated. A modular modelling system has been developed for comparing response and pressure indicators and for decomposing the response impact of policy measures. Compared to 1990, the internalised manure surplus is reduced to zero,...

The agricultural policies shift gradually from EU-level organised market interventions to local organised environmental policies. This paper explores the growth possibilities of the Flemish dairy sector with the outlook of a quota abolishment as a case study of this policy shift. The dairy quota...

This short poster paper presents ongoing research on the informal silage maize trade between specialised dairy farmers in Flanders, Belgium. We investigated the influence of transaction costs on the silage maize trade market. Additionally, we investigated the influence of the establishment of...

We investigate farmers’ intentions to apply biodiversity conservation practices from psychological perspective, using an adapted version of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), including group norms and putting emphasis on moral norms and self-identity. The study is based on a quantitative...

Modeling the farm level impact of risk management programs, policies and instruments is traditionally been done on a farm-level basis. Hence, farm simulation models typically use the behavioural assumption of profit or utility maximization is risk aversion taken into account. However, abundant...

In order to support rural policy making with appropriate information, alternative territorial breakdowns of statistics are necessary. This paper shows how the widely used criterion of 150 inhabitants per km² can be fine tuned to better account for local specific conditions, in particular high...