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Teaching

• Master of Agricultural and Food Economics (AFECO)
• Theodor-Brinkmann-Graduate School

Projects

• BATMODEL Better Agri-food Trade Modelling for Policy Analysis, HORIZON 2020, 2020-2024
• Phenorob Robotocs and Phenotyping for Sustainable Crop Production, Contribution to Core Project 6 on Technology Adaption and impact, DFG Excellence Strategy, 2020-2024
• MIND-STEP Modelling Individual Decisions to Support the European Policies Related to Agriculture, HORIZON 2020, 2019-2023
• Transform2Bio Integrated Transformation Processes and Their Regional Implementations: Structural Change from Fossil Economy to Bioeconomy, BIOSC, 2019-2022
• BEST Bio-Economy in Europe and SDGs: Development, Contribution and Trade-Offs, BMBF, 2019-2022
• LIFT Low-Input Farming and Territories - Integrating knowledge for improving ecosystem-based farming, HORIZON 2020, 2018-2022
• Further projects

Units

Institute for Food- and Resouce Economics

Faculty of Agriculture

University Bonn

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Research focus

Our research focus is on the quantitative analysis of questions related to sustainability and provision of eco-systems services by agri-food systems from farm to global scale. To do so, our team develops and applies different Economic Simulation Models and related methodologies, often in large-scale applications. The software backbone of our models is the Algebraic Modeling Language GAMS, driven by Graphical User Interfaces implemented in Java. We introduce our graduate students in courses to the tools we apply in our research and foster their application in students' projects.

Specific applications include, for instance, mixed-integer, dynamic and stochastic programming, large-scale non-linear and bi-level programming, mixed complementarity problems and constrained systems of non-linear equations. Drawing on computing servers available at institute level, we apply parallel computing, inter alia for large-scale sensitivity analysis. Our models are hosted on a software versioning system, adhere to coding standards and implement quality management based on test suites.

Cooperations

Our group links via various grant funded projects to the German and European research area, sponsored inter alia by the German Research Foundation and the Research Framework programs of the EU Commission, often jointly participating with other teams from the institute or faculty. A close co-operation with EUROCARE, a consulting specialising in quantitative policy impact analysis, supports the access of graduate students and post docs to applied research projects, and helps transfering our scientific findings to stakeholders.

Current projects

Better Agri-food Trade Modelling for Policy Analysis (BATModel),9/2020 - 8/2024
Coordinator:	Karine Latouche, INRA, France
Team:	Dr. Wolfgang Britz
Funding:	Horizon 2020 EU Research and Innovation programme
Robotics and Phenotyping for Sustainable Crop Production (PhenoRob), contribution to Core Project 6 on Technology Adoption and Impact, 1/2020 - 12/2024
Coordinator:	Cyril Stachniss
Team:	Christoph Pahmeyer Dr. Wolfgang Britz
Funding:	German Science Foundation
Modelling Individual Decisions to Support the European Policies Related to Agriculture (MIND-STEP), 9/2019 - 8/2023
Coordinator:	John Helming, WUR, co-ordinator
Team:	David Schaefer, Dr. Wolfgang Britz
Funding:	Horizon 2020 EU Research and Innovation programme
Integrated Transformation Processes and Their Regional Implementations: Structural Change from Fossil Economy to Bioeconomy (Transform2Bio), 9/2019 - 8/2022
Coordinator:	Dr. Sandra Venghaus, Institut fuer Energie- und Klimaforschung, Abteilung Systemforschung und Technologische Entwicklung (IEK-STE), Forschungszentrum Juelich, co-ordinator
Team:	Dr. Till Kuhn, Dr. Wolfgang Britz
Funding:	Bioeconomy Science Center (BioSC)
Bio-Economy in Europe and SDGs: Development, Contribution and Trade-Offs (BEST), 6/2019 - 5/2022
Coordinator:	Christian Lutz, co-ordinator, Gesellschaft für Wirtschaftliche Strukturforschung, Braunschweig, Germany
Team:	Rienne Wilts, Dr. Wolfgang Britz
Funding:	German Federal Ministry for Education and Research, Research Area bioeconomy as societal change
Low-Input Farming and Territories - Integrating knowledge for improving ecosystem-based farming (LIFT), 5/2018 - 4/2022
Coordinator:	Dr. Laure Latruffe, INRA, Rennes, France
Team:	Julia Heinrichs, Dr. Wolfgang Britz,
Funding:	Horizon 2020 EU Research and Innovation programme

Past projects

Co-definition and evaluation of SUSTAINable BEEF farming systems based on resources non edible by humans (SUSTAINBEEF), 9/2017 - 8/2020
Coordinator:	Dr. Didier Stilmant, Wallon Agricultural Research Center
Team:	Christoph Pahmeyer, Lennart Kokemohr, Dr. Wolfgang Britz
Funding:	EU-Era-Net: Co-funded by the EU DG-Rsrch and the German Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture
Forests in the global bioeconomy: developing multi-scale policy scenarios (BioEconFor), 6/2015-7/2019
Coordinator:	Prof. Dr. Jan Boerner
Team:	Salwa Haddad, Dr. Wolfgang Britz
Funding:	German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through the Advisory Service on Agricultural Research for Development (Beratungsgruppe Entwicklungsorientierte Agrarforschung - BEAF).
Modeling structural change and agricultural nutrient flows across scales in regions of North Rhine-Westphalia, 6/2016 - 7/2019
Coordinator:	Dr. Wolfgang Britz
Sub-Project:	Regional modeling of structural change in agriculture with an agent based approach under consideration of nutrient exchanges between farms
Team:	David Schaefer, Dr. Wolfgang Britz
Funding:	Ministerium für Klimaschutz, Umwelt, Landwirtschaft, Natur- und Verbraucherschutz des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen
DairyStruct: Understanding spatial interactions and structural change in the dairy production chain with a dynamic regional Agent Based Model covering dairy farms and dairy processing, 6/2015 - 12/2018
Team:	Dr. Wolfgang Britz, Claudia Seidel
Funding:	German Research Foundation

Last Updated:Monday, January 25, 2021

News

• Aus unserer Forschung: in neuer Ansatz zur Simulation der Auswirkungen von Risiken und Risikopräferenzen auf den optimalen Zeitpunkt und Umfang der Technologieeinführung in der Landwirtschaft
• Aus unserer Forschung: Bioplastik im Nachhaltigkeits-Dilemma
  Bioplastics in the sustainability dilemma
• Best video award of DIGICROP conference for Christoph Pahmeyer : "Fruchtfolge: A crop rotation decision support system"
• Video for LCA conference by Lennart Kokemohr : "Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of beef production in Germany based on a farm level optimization level"
• New H2020 research project BATMODEL, 2020-2024
• Contribution to DFG Excellence cluster Phenorob, 2020-2024
• GTAP research fellow award for Wolfgang Britz
• Aus unserer Forschung: Oekonomische und oekologische Bewertung eines Glyphosatverzichts am Beispiel der Silomaisproduktion in Nordrhein-Westfalen

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Recent publications

• Automated Calibration of Farm-Sale Mixed Linear Programming Models using Bi-Level Programming (2021) Britz, W. (2021): Automated Calibration of Farm-Sale Mixed Linear Programming Models using Bi-Level Programming, German Journal of Agricultural Economics 70(3): 165-181
• Properly capturing tariff rate quotas for trade policy analysis in computable general equilibrium models (2021) Jafari, Y., Britz, W., Guimbard, H., Beckman, J. (2021): Properly capturing tariff rate quotas for trade policy analysis in computable general equilibrium models, Economic Modelling, in: Available online 19 August 2021, 105620
• Risk, Risk Aversion, and Agricultural Technology Adoption - A Novel Valuation Method Based on Real Options and Inverse Stochastic Dominance (2021) Spiegel, A., Britz, W., Finger, R. (2021): Risk, Risk Aversion, and Agricultural Technology Adoption - A Novel Valuation Method Based on Real Options and Inverse Stochastic Dominance, Q Open 2(1):1-26
• Estimating a global MAIDADS demand system considering demography, climate and norms (2021) Britz, W. (2021): Estimating a global MAIDADS demand system considering demography, climate and norms, Bio-based and Applied Economics online available 19 July 2021
• Comparing Penalty Functions in Balancing and Dis-aggregating Social Accounting Matrices (2021) Britz, W. (2021): Comparing Penalty Functions in Balancing and Dis-aggregating Social Accounting Matrices, Journal of Global Economic Analysis 6(1): 34-81
• Who is Most Vulnerable to Climate Change Induced Yield Changes? A Dynamic Long Run Household Analysis in Lower Income Countries (2021) Wilts, R., Latka, C., Britz, W. (2021): Who is Most Vulnerable to Climate Change Induced Yield Changes? A Dynamic Long Run Household Analysis in Lower Income Countries, Climate Risk Management: 100330
• A design for a generic and modular bio-economic farm model (2021) Britz, W., Ciaian, P., Gocht, A., Kanellopoulos, A., Kremmydas, D., Müller, M., Petsakos, A., Reidsma, P. (2021): A design for a generic and modular bio-economic farm model, Agricultural Systems,191(June 2021): 103133
• Data on a synthetic farm population of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (2021) Pahmeyer, C., Schäfer, D., Kuhn, T., Britz, W. (2021): Data on a synthetic farm population of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Data in Brief 36(June 2021): 107007
• Evaluation of the contribution of 16 European beef production systems to food security (2021) Mosnier, C., Jarousse, A., Madrange, P., Balouzat, J., Guillier, M., Pirlo, G., Mertens, A., ORiordan, E., Pahmeyer, C., Hennart, S., Legein, L., Crosson, P., Kearney, M., Dimon, P., Bertozzi, C., Reding, E., Iacurto, M., Breen, J., Carè, S., Veysset, P. (2021): Evaluation of the contribution of 16 European beef production systems to food security, Agricultural Systems 190(May 2021): 103088
• It is all in the details: A bilateral approach for modelling trade agreements at the tariff line (2021) Jafari, Y., Himics, M., Britz, W., Beckman, J. (2021): It is all in the details: A bilateral approach for modelling trade agreements at the tariff line, Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics 69(3): 415-424
• Integrated assessment of legume production challenged by European policy interaction: A case-study approach from French and German dairy farms (2021) Heinrichs, J., Pahmeyer C., Britz, W. (2021): Integrated assessment of legume production challenged by European policy interaction: A case-study approach from French and German dairy farms, QOpen 1(1):1-19
• Metrics on the sustainability of region-specific bioplastics production, considering global land use change effects (2021) Escobar, N., Britz, W. (2021): Metrics on the sustainability of region-specific bioplastics production, considering global land use change effects, Resources, Conservation and Recycling 167(April 2021),2015345
• ‘Fruchtfolge’: A crop rotation decision support system for optimizing cropping choices with big data and spatially explicit modeling (2021) Pahmeyer, C., Kuhn, T., Britz, W. (2021): ‘Fruchtfolge’: A crop rotation decision support system for optimizing cropping choices with big data and spatially explicit modeling, Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 181,105948
• Economic effects of plot sizes and farm-plot distances in organic and conventional farming systems: A farm-level analysis for Germany (2021) Heinrichs, J., Britz, W., Pahmeyer, C., Kuhn, T. (2021): Economic effects of plot sizes and farm-plot distances in organic and conventional farming systems: A farm-level analysis for Germany, Agricultural Systems 187,1029922020
• Long-Term Scenarios for Sub-Saharan Africa's Agro-Food Markets with varying Population, Income and Crop Productivity Trends (2021) Kuhn, A., Britz, W. (2021): Long-Term Scenarios for Sub-Saharan Africa's Agro-Food Markets with varying Population, Income and Crop Productivity Trends, Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 46(1): 20-36
• Step-by-step development of a model simulating returns on farm from investments: the example of hazelnut plantation in Italy (2020) Spiegel, A., Severini, S., Britz, W., Coletta, A. (2020): Step-by-step development of a model simulating returns on farm from investments: the example of hazelnut plantation in Italy, Bio-Based and Applied Economics 9(1): 53-83
• Economic opportunities of using crossbreeding and sexing in Holstein dairy herds (2020) Pahmeyer, C. Britz, W. (2020): Economic opportunities of using crossbreeding and sexing in Holstein dairy herds, Journal of Dairy Science, 103(9):8218-8330
• Can Food Waste Reduction in Europe Help to Increase Food Availability and Reduce Pressure on Natural Resources Globally? (2020) Jafari, Y., Britz, W., Dudu, H., Roson, R., Sartori, M. (2020): Can Food Waste Reduction in Europe Help to Increase Food Availability and Reduce Pressure on Natural Resources Globally?, German Journal of Agricultural Economics 69(2): 143-168
• Coupling crop and bio-economic farm modelling to evaluate the revised fertilization regulations in Germany (2020) Kuhn, T., Enders, A., Gaiser, T., Schaefer, D., Srivastava, A., Britz, W. (2020): Coupling crop and bio-economic farm modelling to evaluate the revised fertilization regulations in Germany, Agricultural Systems 127: 104656
• An economic and environmental assessment of a glyphosate ban for the example of maize production (2020) Boecker, T., Moehring, N., Finger, R., Britz, W. (2020): An economic and environmental assessment of a glyphosate ban for the example of maize production, European Review of Agricultural Economics 47(2): 371-402