Papers by Irene Tzouramani
EuroChoices, Dec 1, 2022
SummaryDelivering an agricultural policy which meets ecosystem and climatic pressures and address... more SummaryDelivering an agricultural policy which meets ecosystem and climatic pressures and addresses weaknesses in our current food system presents complex challenges for food producers. Adoption of ecological practices will reduce the dependence on imports into the farm and is one way to meet some of these policy ambitions. Understanding why farmers do or don’t adopt these practices is key to enabling this transition. This study outlines a series of investigations into the key barriers, values and perceptions towards ecological practice adoption across European farming.We find that personal, technical and institutional forces influence the adoption of more sustainable practices but these forces have varying levels of influence. The tensions between environmental, compared to purely production orientated motivations, may be a key barrier to ecological practice adoption. We also find a strong influence of commodity supply chains which may either encourage or limit adoption of these approaches. Promoting efforts for co‐ordinated approaches between the public and private sectors may mitigate some of the dissonance in messaging towards these practices and alleviate these tensions. We also identify a great deal of heterogeneity within the European farming community and argue for a more targeted approach that would encourage adoption of ecological approaches and promote the scaling up of these practices.
Aquatic Living Resources
The COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent public health interventions have depressed demand and disrup... more The COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent public health interventions have depressed demand and disrupted supply chains for many fishing businesses. This paper provides an analysis of the COVID-19 impacts on the profitability of the EU fishing fleets. Nowcasting techniques were used to estimate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economic performance for the EU fishing fleet in 2020 and 2021. Our results show that the economic impact of COVID-19 on this sector was smaller than initially expected and overall profits remained positive. This was in part due to low fuel prices that reduced operating costs of fishing, and the early response from governments to support the sector. The results vary by fishing fleet, revealing that small-scale fleets and the fleets in the Mediterranean and Black seas have been more impacted than large-scale fleets and the fleets in the Northeast Atlantic.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Apr 29, 2022
This deliverable D7.6 of the LIFT project is the final scientific deliverable of the project that... more This deliverable D7.6 of the LIFT project is the final scientific deliverable of the project that was carried out during four years from May 2018 till April 2022. The deliverable summarises the methodologies used and the key results for the main research activities that were carried out in LIFT: definition of ecological agriculture; adoption of ecological approaches; farm performance of ecological agriculture; territorial sustainability of ecological agriculture; trade-offs and synergies across sustainability dimensions and scales; impact of policies; role of stakeholders. Recommendations in terms of policies, data and research needs, are then provided.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Apr 29, 2022
In the frame of the DoMEsTIc project (EU FP7 ARIMNet), one of the main objectives was to undertak... more In the frame of the DoMEsTIc project (EU FP7 ARIMNet), one of the main objectives was to undertake an in-depth assessment of the information related with the utilized marketing channels for local sheep and goat milk and milk products. The identified livestock distribution channels are influenced by particular interrelated factors. Such factors are linked with the production and profit orientation (i.e. sales price, quantity of milk, income), production cost and product differentiation, loyalty, speed of payment, personal relationships, isolation of the farm and determine the profile of small ruminant farmers and their marketing strategies. Using the framework of the value chain, this study identified the different actors, assessed the governance mechanisms in the value chain, analysed the opportunities for upgrading within the chain and revealed the constraints that prevent the development of the sheep and goat milk value chain with special focus on the farmers’ point of view. In th...
Agriculture
Olive groves are an important element of the Mediterranean landscape and heritage and contribute ... more Olive groves are an important element of the Mediterranean landscape and heritage and contribute significantly to the area’s rural economies. The primary interest of researchers and policymakers lies in the economic performance of this activity, especially in light of the resource limitations imposed by climate change. Profitability and productivity analyses, as well as technical efficiency methodologies, have been applied to evaluate the economic sustainability of olive cultivation and have often identified shortcomings in farms’ management and structure. In our study, we use profitability and productivity indicators, as well as data envelopment analysis, to estimate the economic performance of Cretan olive groves and a second-stage regression analysis to determine factors that affect efficiency scores. One novelty of this study is that the results are presented across alternative ecological approaches, i.e., organic, conservation, low-input, and standard farms. Our findings indica...
Social performance is the pillar of sustainability that is the most often neglected, compared to ... more Social performance is the pillar of sustainability that is the most often neglected, compared to the evaluation of environmental and economic performances of farming systems. Farmers' working conditions are rarely studied. To understand farmers' working conditions and to assess them, it is necessary to develop a multicriteria approach including not only quantifiable dimensions (e.g., the length of working days) but also dimensions that can explain how working conditions are experienced by workers (e.g., by understanding farmer's reasons for acting). Multiple factors contribute to determine farmers' working conditions such as the composition of the workforce, the region, but also the degree of uptake of ecological practices. This deliverable contributes to knowledge on this issue, explaining the work carried out in task 3.3 of the LIFT project. The main objectives of task 3.3 were: i) to describe farmers' and farm workers' working conditions in different farmi...
EuroChoices
SummaryThe concept of a ‘just transition’ is gaining traction in international policy discourses.... more SummaryThe concept of a ‘just transition’ is gaining traction in international policy discourses. It has particular significance in relation to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions and the need for ensuring rights and responsibilities of all actors in transitions to agroecological farming systems. Research plays an important role in accompanying this transformation. It explores pathways for more sustainable and fair food systems, barriers to them being achieved, and where and what risks arise for communities of interest and of place. Researchers and practitioners across levels and sectors were brought together in H2020 projects LIFT and UNISECO using processes of stakeholder engagement. Both projects analysed the perceptions of actors towards agroecological farming, and their active involvement in the transitions required. This article summarises lessons learnt regarding multi‐actor engagement in different participatory settings in both projects, including a Multi‐Actor Platf...
This Deliverable 1.4 (D1.4) presents the final version of the LIFT farm typology developed in WP1... more This Deliverable 1.4 (D1.4) presents the final version of the LIFT farm typology developed in WP1, together with a system of rules to assign individual farms to one or more of the categories defined in Deliverable 1.1 (Rega et al., 2018). These sets of rules, together with the set of data on farming practices to which they apply, have been named "Protocols". The typology is defined as a combination of two main elements: type of farm and farming approach. The type of farm characterises the farm in terms of main production and specialisation and uses the nomenclature defined by Eurostat. The farming approach is a classification applicable to individual holdings based on their type of management, assessed from an ecological perspective. Classifying farms according to a defined typology is a necessary step in LIFT project, in order to carry out subsequent statistical analyses and investigate drivers and obstacles in determining the adoption of ecological farming practices, or ...
This report evaluates detection tests of inservice inspectors (ISI), procedures and equipment tha... more This report evaluates detection tests of inservice inspectors (ISI), procedures and equipment that are employed to find intergranular stress corrosion cracks in nuclear power plant piping. Performance is described by two fundamental parameters: false call probability and probability of detection. Acceptable inspection performance and detection tests are therefore defined in terms of these two parameters. 14 refs., 25 figs.
The Evaluation and Improvement of NDE Reliability and evaluating reliability improvements that ca... more The Evaluation and Improvement of NDE Reliability and evaluating reliability improvements that can bc f,,_rlnservice Inspection of Light Water Reactors (NDE achieved with improved and advanced technology. ,'_ Reliability') Program at the Pacific Northwest Laborato-final objective is to formulate recommended revisions to rv was established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commis-the Regulatory and ASME Code requlrcmcnts, based sion to determine the reliability oi' current inservice on material properties, service conditions, and NDE inspection (ISI) techniques and to develop recomrncn-uncertainties. The program scope is limited to ISI of dations that will ensure a suitably high inspection reli-the primary systems including the piping, vessel, and ability. The objectives of this program include deter-other components inspected in accordance with Section mining the reliability of ISI performed on the primary XI of the ASME Code. This is a progress report covsystt::na,,.; of commercial light-water reactors (LWRs); ering the programmatic work from April 1!)91 through using probabilistic fracture mechanics analysis to deter-September 1991. mine the impact of NDE unreliability on system safety;
2008 International Conference on Prognostics and Health Management, 2008
Abstract-There are approximately 440 operating reactors in the global nuclear power plant (NPP) f... more Abstract-There are approximately 440 operating reactors in the global nuclear power plant (NPP) fleet that have an average age greater than 20 years and design lives of 30 or 40 years. The United States is currently implementing license extensions of 20 years on ...
This document presents the results of Task 3.2 (farm technical-economic performance) in workpacka... more This document presents the results of Task 3.2 (farm technical-economic performance) in workpackage (WP) 3 (farm performance of ecological agriculture) of the LIFT project. The overall aim of Task 3.2 is to assess and compare technical-economic farm performance across the European Union (EU) depending on the degree of ecological approaches adopted by farms and analyse drivers, affecting their performance. This requires an approach, which allows to consider regional specifics, while still allowing comparisons between different regions and countries. The deliverable thus consists of several academic papers, focussing on a range of different case studies, applying a wide range of methods, which can most generally be divided into empirical econometric approaches and bio-economic models. At the same time, all case studies follow a similar structure and include some common elements in terms of the applied methods, in particular a set of common indicators of technical-economic farm perform...
This deliverable investigates the socio-economic effects of ecological approaches to farming thro... more This deliverable investigates the socio-economic effects of ecological approaches to farming through implementing two participatory approaches, namely Delphi exercise and Q-method, at the level of a case study area (CSA). The focus is on how people and other productive assets are employed and remunerated by ecological approaches to agriculture, particularly those aspects that can influence employment, and drive the prosperity and vitality of local communities and some rural businesses. It is based on the collaborative research on Task 4.2 'Socio-economic impact of ecological agriculture at the territorial level' of the LIFT project between UNIKENT (United Kingdom-UK) (Task Leader), BOKU (Austria), INRAE (France), VetAgro Sup (France), DEMETER (Greece), MTA KRTK (Hungary), UNIBO (Italy), IRWiR PAN (Poland), IAE-AR (Romania), SLU (Sweden), SRUC (UK). Beginning with the Delphi exercise, this deliverable presents qualitative information extracted from stakeholders in the followi...
This deliverable (D2.3) of the LIFT project presents the results of a series of investigations ar... more This deliverable (D2.3) of the LIFT project presents the results of a series of investigations around up-take of ecological approaches across the value chain. We use primary and secondary data collected utilising a number of methods, built on conceptual frameworks developed within LIFT and elsewhere. This provides a range of empirical investigations for an overview of farming, supply chains and consumption drivers which may constrain or enable uptake of ecological approaches. Both exogenous and endogenous drivers were considered for these studies. The report is presented as a set of summaries from academic paper outputs - to show the individual exercises across farmers, value chains and consumers – and to understand both the barriers and enablers for transition to more ecological approaches within European farming. A summary table is provided to show these investigations, as well as the approach used and the type of data collected. Specifically the following sets of studies are pres...
This questionnaire is for the survey to farmers that is to be carried out in the LIFT project, to... more This questionnaire is for the survey to farmers that is to be carried out in the LIFT project, to at least 1,500 farms across the European Union (EU) in the LIFT case study areas. The LIFT large-scale farmer survey represents a key task that provides value added to the LIFT project and informs EU policy anal-ysis as a whole. The innovation is that it collects primary qualitative and quantitative data at the farm level, but also that data will be comparable across a large geographical area, across different produc-tion sectors, as well as across different farming practices/systems. The survey aims at collecting infor-mation that is not available in existing data sources, and that will be used in the analyses of the project.
This deliverable investigates the employment effects of ecological farming by analysing both the ... more This deliverable investigates the employment effects of ecological farming by analysing both the differences in the intensity of labour use and rewards to skills. It contributes to one of the main outcomes/achievements of the LIFT project, i.e. to "identify the sources of performance and sustainability differences between farms of different types, size and output complexity as observed in the landscape of the European Union (EU)". It is based on collaborative research on Task 3.5 'Employment effects of ecological farming at the farm level' of LIFT between UNIKENT (England) (Task Leader), INRAE (France), DEMETER (Greece), MTA KRTK (Hungary) and IRWiR PAN (Poland). The analyses reported consider the differences between farms on a scale from the most conventional farming systems to the most ecological as measured by the intensities of use of external inputs and labour, the receipt of agri-environmental payments (AEP), capital and involvement in organic production. Thi...
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Papers by Irene Tzouramani