Characterising farming resilience capacities in the face of drought and animal diseases

The resilience of farms in a world of increasing climate uncertainties is a growing policy concern on a global scale. Resilience means finding a balance between ensuring adequate preparation to confront shocks, the ability to absorb its immediate impact, and, as part of the recovery phase, adapting and transforming farm practices to a new environment. A dynamic framework developed by OECD to measure these resilience capacities is applied to three case studies: crop farms affected by drought in Australia, and livestock farms impacted by disease outbreaks in France and Estonia. It was found that most farms performed well in only two of the four resilience capacities. Productivity, investment, and technical change are found to be key drivers of most resilience capacities in Australia, while in Estonia marketing contracts facilitated the successful adaptation and transformation of pig farms during the recovery phase. Future research should focus on finding how to better balance the four resilience capacities, prioritising the analysis of policy drivers.