Contributions from the Italian BrightSpace Team: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (UCSC)
The Dual Impact of Organic Farming Support: Private Response and Societal Outcome for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Abatement – Explored inconsistencies between farmers’ private incentives and societal goals in CAP-supported organic farming (Alessandro Varacca, Silvia Coderoni, Roberto Esposti).
Are Consumers Interested in Low-Carbon-Emission Milk? A Comparison Between Nature-Based and Lab Solutions – Investigated consumer preferences and willingness to pay for innovative milk alternatives in Italy, Czechia, and Germany. Findings indicate strong preference for milk produced with natural feed additives, with plant-based beverages being least preferred. Mandatory information on environmental benefits significantly increases consumer willingness to pay (Linda Arata, Mirta Casati, Samuel Ahado, Miroslava Bavorova, Elena Castellari, Lukas Cechura, Catharina Latka, Tereza Pilarova, Paolo Sckokai).
Evaluating the Impact of Switching to Organic Farming: A Double/Debiased Machine Learning Staggered Difference-in-Differences Approach – Assessed the economic and environmental trade-offs of organic conversion across EU member states, highlighting the importance of subsidies during the transition period (Paolo Brignoli, Yann de Mey, Paolo Sckokai, Alessandro Varacca).
Global Perspective: BrightSpace WP7 Contribution
Michiel van Dijk (WSER) presented the new GRAPE database (Global Research on Agriculture: Personnel & Expenditures, 1960–2022), a comprehensive, globally comparable dataset on public agricultural R&D compiled by Wageningen University & Research and the U.S. Economic Research Service. GRAPE covers 191 countries and enables analyses of R&D investments, productivity impacts, and long-term agricultural knowledge stocks. Key insights include:
- EU27 leads global public agricultural R&D, with USD 8.4 billion spent and 44,000 researchers in 2022.
- China’s R&D investment grew rapidly, nearly matching EU levels by 2022.
- India and Brazil have increased investment, while U.S. investment has declined since 2010.
🔗Access the full paper here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-025-05331-y
Reflections
BrightSpace’s participation in the EAAE 2025 Congress reinforced the project’s visibility and impact across European and global agricultural economics. The event offered valuable opportunities to:
- Share innovative research and methodologies
- Receive constructive feedback for journal submissions and further analysis
- Foster collaborations with EU Horizon projects and international partners
- Strengthen networks for advancing sustainable and climate-smart agriculture
The EAAE Congress provided a rich platform for BrightSpace to exchange ideas, refine research approaches, and showcase our contributions to agricultural economic modelling and sustainability policy.
BrightSpace continues to leverage these insights to support evidence-based, policy-relevant research across European agri-food systems.
🔗 Also read the first part of this article: BrightSpace at EAAE 2025- Part 1: Advancing Agricultural Economics in Bonn
Source: UCSC, CZU, WSER
