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BAB 059/22: Regional agricultural value chains

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BAB 059/22: Regional agricultural value chains

Created: 22 March 2022
Last Updated: 07 March 2023

BAB 059/22: Regional agricultural value chains

Initial situation

Covid-19 and the Ukraine crisis have brought food supply chains back into the public eye. The project "Scenarios on the vulnerability of the Austrian food supply due to the consequences of Covid-19" was included in the 2020 AOD work programme, and this was continued with the project "RESILIENZ - Corona crisis and agricultural and forestry value chains - lessons learned" in the 2021 and 2022 work programme. From the "RESILIENZ" research project just mentioned, work package 3: Regional agricultural value chains will now be continued in the joint project application Robust value and supply chains for agricultural goods and food in Austria - ROBVEK.
The reliable supply of affordable, high-quality food is one of the greatest successes of a social market economy based on the division of labour, innovation, competition and entrepreneurship. In this research project, the robustness of food supply is to be examined with a view to current market developments. Both aspects of supply security, i.e. both the quantitative supply and the affordability of goods, will be examined along the value chain in several work packages:

Price transparency: How do the current prices of goods relevant for Austrian agriculture develop? How should the information be presented so that farmers derive the greatest possible benefit? A portal created in the project shows not only prices of agricultural commodities, but also prices of intermediate inputs, especially energy sources.
Transparency about quantities and values of the commodity flows of agricultural goods and food in Austria: What quantities of agricultural goods and food are available in Austria? Which elements of the value chain interact and how does the coordination of the participants in the value chain work? This will determine the robustness of the value chain in Austria.
A dashboard to show the robustness of supply and value chains: How robust are international supply and value chains that are relevant for food supply in Austria? The results are presented together with those of work package 2 on the basis of a dashboard.
Transparency on price expectations: How will the prices of processed and non-processed food and of important energy sources develop in the coming quarters? The intended output includes methodological documentation and a workflow for updating the price forecasts of agricultural commodities, energy sources and food groups on a quarterly basis.
Policy briefs on the robustness of supply chains: Agricultural production and food supply is embedded in a comprehensive set of rules from different policy fields (e.g. agricultural policy, energy and health policy). How well these rules are able to facilitate and improve the functioning of supply chains in times of crisis is assessed and evaluated in policy briefs.

Zielsetzung

The current situation on agricultural commodity markets and the currently very high prices for food are bringing these goals to the centre of general attention. The central objective of the project is to review and evaluate the available information, findings and data in order to be able to determine, on the basis of suitable indicators, the extent to which the objectives of supply security are being achieved, so that further measures can be taken if necessary. The information should be made available to all decision-makers, including farmers.

In order to achieve this basic objective, the following sub-objectives will be pursued:

Creation of an up-to-date internet presence to ensure price transparency
Development of a method that uses existing data sources to create transparency on the volumes and values available in Austria along the agri-food value chain.
Development of a prototype dashboard to show the robustness of international supply and value chains relevant for Austria.
To develop a method for forecasting the inflation of food and energy products
The creation of decision-making bases and options for action on issues of supply security

Planned procedure and implementation

The entire project led by WIFO is divided into six work packages, whereby the Federal Institute of Agricultural Economics and Mining is significantly involved in three work packages.

Work package 1: Price portal at the Federal Institute for Agricultural Economics and Mining Research

Currently, there are various institutions, each of which provides data for their specific purposes. On the website (www.landnutzung.at/preise.html) financed by the EU within the framework of an EIP project, some aspects are already well implemented. However, there is a lot of data (e.g. from AMA, AMA GmbH and the Chambers of Agriculture) that is not integrated. The functionality can also be improved with regard to the individualisation of the data provided by the website. Possibilities should be sought to compile a personal dashboard.
The participating institutions BAB, AMA, LKÖ, WIFO provide an interface for the price portal. The following work steps are aimed at:

Transfer of the stocks (as far as legally permissible) and the functionality of the websitelandnut-zung.at/preise.html to a new price portal operated by BAB..;
the institutions involved (AMA, Austrian Chamber of Agriculture, WIFO) develop suitable electronic interfaces that enable the automated transfer of entered price data;
a prototype of the BAB price portal is tested for its suitability by stakeholders before publication and the identified deficiencies are eliminated before the finished price portal is rolled out;
the key points for customising the price portal are developed in a concept and a cost estimate is presented;
a short report on the outlook for the further procedure outlines which further products can be included in the course of extensions and to what extent other institutions (e.g. Statistics Austria, the food trade) can contribute to the extension of the functionality.

Work package 2: Transparency of available quantities of agricultural goods and food in Austria

In cooperation with the AMA (work package leader), the value chains of exemplarily selected agricultural sectors are analysed and graphically presented. For this purpose it is necessary to identify all actors (nodes) and their relations (flows). The results are to be presented in the form of Sankey diagrams for illustration purposes. The selection of the sector to be analysed (proposal pork sector, grain sector) was made in consultation with the client. Based on the quantitative description of the material flows, a value flow representation is to be added in accordance with the available price data.
The planned work steps can be summarised as follows:

Delimitation of the concrete contents and definition of the case study for the volume flow analysis;
Review and structuring of the data available at the institutions involved;
Review of additional relevant data at other institutions and at other relevant institutions (e.g. Statistics Austria) and research projects;
Identification of data gaps and proposals for closing them (if necessary, follow-up surveys or interviews with actors in the sector);
Implementation of the case study and visualisation of the volume flow analysis by means of Sankey diagrams, (report);
Development of a concept for the implementation of a value stream analysis and comparable analyses for other products or product groups;
Documentation of the results in a report.

Work package 3: Dashboard for the robustness of international supply and value chains in the area of agricultural goods and food

In this work package, led by WIFO, foreign trade represents the direct interface between work packages 2 and 3. By referring to the nodes and material flows listed in work package 2, the factors that are decisive for the functioning of the value chain are to be identified and described. Work package 3 focuses on the robustness of the supply and value chains at the global level. This includes the following work steps:

Presentation in the form of a qualitative description of the essential inputs for the production of agricultural goods and food (e.g. energy, logistics, labour, raw materials, packaging material, etc.) at national level using the example of the "meat" value chain;
Documentation of the results in a report.