The BrightSpace project proudly participated in the 18th European Association of Agricultural Economists (EAAE) Congress, held from 26–29 August 2025 in Bonn, Germany, under the theme “Food System Transformation in Challenging Times.” Hosted by the University of Bonn, the congress brought together the European agricultural economic community to discuss critical developments in food system research, policy, and sustainability.
BrightSpace at the Congress:
- The University of Bonn BrightSpace team was part of the Local Organising Committee and presented multiple project outputs. The UBO contributions included:
- Presentation – Spatio-temporal Patterns of Field Structural Change and Related Farm Developments in Lower Saxony (Damilola Aladesuru, Till Kuhn, Hugo Storm)
- Presentation – Using a Crop Sequence Typology to Assess Agri-Environmental Policies for Crop Diversification (Till Kuhn, Hugo Storm, L. Kokemohr)
- Policy-Driven Shifts in Crop Choices: German Implementation of the EU Nitrates Directive (Kuhn, T., Pahmeyer, C., Baumert, J., Storm, H.)
- Poster – Farm Diversification And Its Role In Achieving Safe And Just Outcomes: Insights From German FADN Data (Lucie Adenaeuer, Till Kuhn, Hugo Storm)
- Hugo Storm also hosted an Organised Session on Machine Learning-based Surrogate Modelling for Agricultural Economic Models, integrating insights from BrightSpace’s fellow project LAMASUS.
BrightSpace Organised Session on Farm-Level Modelling for CAP Analysis
BrightSpace contributed to EAAE 2025 through the Organised Session “Advancing Farm Modelling for CAP Policy Analysis: Building a Collaborative Network”, chaired by Marc Müller (BrightSpace Project Coordinator, Wageningen Social and Economic Research) and Pavel Ciaian (European Commission, JRC). The session was very well attended and generated strong engagement from the audience. Andrea Furlan (European Commission, DG AGRI) joined the session as discussant, drawing on his direct involvement in the transition from FADN to FSDN. He reflected on the growing role of farm-level simulation models in ex-ante policy analysis and the importance of robust, representative farm data to support CAP design and evaluation.
The presentations showcased case studies using IFM-CAP, FarmDyn, and AgriPoliS, illustrating applications of farm-level models for policy analysis and recent advances in data integration, including the combination of FADN with spatial data. Two presentations directly linked to BrightSpace:
- Fostering Crop Diversification through the CAP: Insights from the FarmDyn Model (Till Kuhn, Hugo Storm, Lennart Kokemohr), examined how alternative CAP designs could better incentivise temporal crop diversification, highlighting heterogeneous farm responses and spatially differentiated compliance costs
- Combining FADN and Spatial Data for the Construction of EU-wide Representative Farms for the FarmDyn Model (Marc Müller, Hugo Scherer, Walter Rossi-Cervi), demonstrated how integrating FADN with spatial bio-physical data can improve the representation of input–output relationships for policy analyses targeting nutrient use efficiency and GHG emission reductions.
The subsequent discussion with the audience focused on data representativeness, in particular the extent to which FADN-based models adequately capture certain farm types, notably organic farms, highlighting key challenges and priorities for future model and data development.
Moderation and Project Representation
Many BrightSpace researchers contributed as moderators across multiple sessions, shaping discussions across diverse congress topics, including:
- Supply Chains & Labels – Mirta Casati (UCSC)
- Agricultural Climate Mitigation and Emission Policy – Peter Witzke (EuroCARE Bonn)
- Cooperatives and Producer Organisations – Giulia Tiboldo (UCSC)
- Efficiency in Dairy and Policy Systems – Lukas Cechura (CZU)
- Innovation and Efficiency in Agriculture – Michael Wögerer (IIASA)
- Livestock, Manure and Phosphorus Management – Jack Peerlings (WUR)
- Gender Gaps in Agricultural Productivity – Jarmila Curtiss (Thünen)
- Insurance Design, Fraud and Shock Response – Linda Arata (UCSC)
- Risk, Uncertainty, and Real Options in Agriculture – Kutay Cingiz (WUR)
- Diet, Welfare & Policy Instruments – Hans Van Meijl (WSER)
Cross-project collaboration
A pre-congress workshop on 26 August 2025 brought together BrightSpace, GeneBEcon, and RATION Horizon Europe projects – organised by Justus Wessler & Maximilian Kardung (WUR) – to showcase their collaborative efforts in economic modelling to address regulatory alternatives for new genomic techniques (GeneBEcon), low-risk pesticides (RATION), and analyzing their market access and potential market size (Brightspace). The workshop presented the outcomes of this collaborative modelling work and discussed advanced general equilibrium modelling techniques and their applications.
🔗 Also read the second part of this article: BrightSpace at EAAE 2025- Part 2: Advancing Agricultural Economics in Bonn
Source: UBO, WUR
