Farm economic resilience, land diversity and environmental uncertainty

Economic resilience is a concept used for farms facing shocks and their capacity to resist, adapt and achieve new equilibria enhancing their long term viability. Operationalizing the resilience concept is a difficult task due to its multidimensional and dynamic nature. Based on literature and risk management theory, this paper develops a composite index of economic resilience based on five dimensions, namely farm s vulnerability, intensification, biodiversity, diversification and performance. In a second step, the composite index is used to estimate the impact of climatic, environmental and telecommunications infrastructure factors on the economic resilience of farms in England and Wales, using multilevel models with mixed effects estimators. Results show that CAP subsidies, soil erosion and drought have a negative impact on the economic resilience of English and Welsh farms, but that a more diversified land use reduces farms vulnerability, by providing more opportunities for agricultural diversification. Finally, extensive telecommunications infrastructure has a particularly important role in the economic resilience of the pigs sector. Acknowledgement :