Robert Huber

Last Name

Huber

First Name

Robert

ORCID

0000-0003-4545-456X

Organisational unit

09564 - Finger, Robert / Finger, Robert

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Publications 1 - 10 of 33

Inter- and transdisciplinary perspective on the integration of ecological processes into ecosystem services analysis in a mountain region
Huber, Robert; Briner, Simon; Bugmann, Harald; et al. (2014)
Ecological Processes
Introduction Ecosystem goods and services (EGS) studies have had little impact on policy processes and real-world decision-making due to limited understanding of the interactions and feedbacks among ecological, social and economic processes. Here we present an inter- and transdisciplinary analysis of global change impacts on EGS provision in a European mountain region. Our aim is to evaluate the projected influence of ecological, economic and social drivers on future EGS provision and to show possible ways to address the predominant limitations of EGS studies. Methods The integrated findings from ecological experiments, mechanistic models of landscape dynamics, socio-economic land-use models, policy analysis and transdisciplinary stakeholder interactions are presented consecutively. Four regionally downscaled global change scenarios, for a case study region near Visp, Switzerland (350 km2), were used to examine the impacts of climate and socio-economic changes on four ecosystem services, i.e., food provision, timber production, net greenhouse gas emissions and protection from natural hazards. Results Our simulation results reveal four key aspects that influence the future provision of mountain EGS. First, we show the high spatial and temporal heterogeneity of EGS provision even in a small case study region. Second, we find that climate change impacts are much more pronounced for forest EGS, while changes to agricultural EGS result primarily from shifts in economic conditions. Third, our modeling results reveal the complex trade-offs associated with the different scenarios. Fourth, simulations illustrate the importance of interactions between environmental shifts and economic decisions. We discuss our simulation results with respect to both existing policy networks and transdisciplinary stakeholder interactions. Conclusion We describe a framework based on experiments and observations that effectively supports the integration of ecological processes into an integrative modeling chain of EGS provision in mountain regions, the political decision-making process and also transdisciplinary stakeholder interactions.
Einführung in die Schweizer Agrarpolitik
Huber, Robert (2022)
Mapping uncertainties in the future provision of ecosystem services in a mountain region in Switzerland
Brunner, Sibyl Hanna; Huber, Robert; Grêt-Regamey, Adrienne (2017)
Regional Environmental Change
Ecosystem services (ES) management has to cope with a high degree of uncertainty related to changes in socio-economic and climatic conditions as well as in societal values. Information regarding the quantity and location of these uncertainties can facilitate identifying which areas require management attention and policy support. In this context, science for mapping ES is evolving rapidly, but there remains a lack of quantitative methods to integrate and visualize uncertainties related to regional and global changes that affect both ES supply and demand. Using a mountain case study in Switzerland, this paper quantifies and maps the uncertainty of future ES provision related to changes in regional and global socio-economic and climatic drivers as well as in ES preferences. We model and map patterns of (dis)agreements regarding ES in a multitude of scenarios and evaluate the magnitude and sources of uncertainty in these patterns. The results illuminate which drivers cause the highest levels of uncertainty in future ES provision and highlight areas where changes in ES are similar across scenarios or where changes are dependent on regional or global contexts. In this case study, changes in ES occur more consistently in remote areas, while in the main valley such changes are highly uncertain and particularly sensitive to national socio-economic drivers and climate change. The uncertainty maps can serve as a basis for discussing regional development plans and national policy strategies. The suggested approach could serve as a straightforward means to quantify and communicate spatial uncertainties in future ES studies.
Incentivizing the adoption of precision agricultural technologies in small‐scaled farming systems: A choice experiment approach
Späti, Karin; Huber, Robert; Logar, Ivana; et al. (2022)
Journal of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association
Precision farming technologies are expected to reduce nutrient surplus in agriculture. Uptake of these technologies in European farming systems, however, is low and policy incentives are needed to promote environmental benefits. We conducted a choice experiment with 418 Swiss farmers to elicit their preferences for site-specific nitrogen fertilization technologies. Using a split-sample approach, we elicit both willingness-to-accept and willingness-to-pay welfare measures. Results show that welfare measures for the nitrogen reduction potential vary significantly between the two samples. This indicates that the policy design affects farmers' preferences and willingness to adopt precision farming technologies that reduce nitrogen losses from agricultural production.
Marginal climate change abatement costs in Swiss dairy production considering farm heterogeneity and interaction effects
Huber, Robert; Tarruella, Marta; Schäfer, David; et al. (2023)
Agricultural Systems
CONTEXT Climate change mitigation in the agricultural sector is a key policy goal. Marginal abatement cost curves allow comparing the cost-effectiveness of agricultural greenhouse gas mitigation measures. Existing studies often do not account for the heterogeneity of farms and interactions between mitigation measures. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study is to present a new approach that allows the calculation of a marginal abatement cost curve that considers farm level interaction effects of climate change mitigation measures. We assess the influence of farm structural heterogeneity on the greenhouse gas abatement potential and the corresponding abatement costs when measures are implemented jointly on the farm level. METHODS We use the bio-economic farm model FarmDyn to simulate farm-specific abatement potential and mitigation costs for a set of mixed dairy farms in a Swiss case study region (n = 66) and develop an approach to calculate a bottom-up, marginal abatement cost curve based on our sample of farms. Simulation results are used to identify and quantify the effect of heterogeneous farm structures (e.g., size, land use, etc.) on the interactions of climate change mitigation measures using regression analysis. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS In our study, interaction effects reduce marginal abatement costs by 7% and the overall greenhouse gas abatement potential by 3% compared to a stand-alone consideration of four climate change mitigation measures. Our analysis of how the underlying farm structures affect interaction effects between climate change mitigation measures shows that complex processes on the farm level can have ambiguous effects (i.e., increasing or decreasing greenhouse gas emissions). We conclude that our approach can provide important knowledge about how heterogeneity affects marginal abatement costs when mitigation measures interact with each other. SIGNIFICANCE Knowledge about the effectiveness and efficiency of climate change mitigation measures and their interaction effects improves our understanding and development of bottom-up marginal abatement cost curves, which represent an important and widely used tool to inform policymakers and stakeholders on cost-efficient and cost-effective climate change mitigation in agriculture.
Open Science in Agricultural Economics
Finger, Robert; Henningsen, Arne; Höhler, Julia; et al. (2025)
Q Open
We provide a ‘big picture’ of what Open Science is and what benefits, limitations, and risks it entails for agricultural economists. We show that Open Science comprises various aspects, such as, the accessibility of science, transparency of scientific processes, open and FAIR research data and code, and openness in teaching and education. We identify potential benefits of Open Science for individual researchers and the public, as well as adoption barriers. We highlight that public benefits of a wide-spread uptake of Open Science practices still remain unexplored. We share best practice examples for key aspects of agricultural economic research, i.e., primary data collection and analysis, optimization and simulation models, use of replication packages and an Open Science Community. Assessing the author guidelines of twelve Agricultural Economics journals for their Open Science practices, we find that data citation and transparency are considered important in many journals already, whereas replication, pre-registration or results-blind review are encouraged but rarely enforced. It also becomes evident that the journals differ in terms of how strictly they enforce their open-science guidelines. We close by providing recommendations for researchers, journal editors, policy makers, universities, research institutes and funding agencies to better align public benefits with private incentives.
Quantifying the impact of farmers' social networks on the effectiveness of climate change mitigation policies in agriculture
Kreft, Cordelia Sophie; Huber, Robert; Schäfer, David; et al. (2024)
Journal of Agricultural Economics
To reduce agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, farmers need to change current farming practices. However, farmers' climate change mitigation behaviour and particularly the role of social and individual characteristics remains poorly understood. Using an agent-based modelling approach, we investigate how knowledge exchange within farmers' social networks affects the adoption of mitigation measures and the effectiveness of a payment per ton of GHG emissions abated. Our simulations are based on census, survey and interview data for 49 Swiss dairy and cattle farms to simulate the effect of social networks on overall GHG reduction and marginal abatement costs. We find that considering social networks increases overall reduction of GHG emissions by 45% at a given payment of 120 Swiss Francs (CHF) per ton of reduced GHG emissions. The per ton payment would have to increase by 380 CHF (i.e., 500 CHF/tCO2eq) to reach the same overall GHG reduction level without any social network effects. Moreover, marginal abatement costs for emissions are lower when farmers exchange relevant knowledge through social networks. The effectiveness of policy incentives aiming at agricultural climate change mitigation can hence be improved by simultaneously supporting knowledge exchange and opportunities of social learning in farming communities.
Quantifying the importance of farmers' behavioral factors in ex-ante assessments of policies supporting sustainable farming practices
Huber, Robert; Kreft, Cordelia; Späti, Karin; et al. (2024)
Ecological Economics
Behavioral factors have been identified to determine farmers' uptake of the adoption of sustainable farming practices. However, the coherent consideration of empirically identified behavioral factors in ex-ante model-based policy assessments is still rare. This study presents an agent-based modelling framework that integrates empirical data on farmers' cognitive, social, and dispositional characteristics. Using this framework, we test and quantify the impact of including behavioral factors in ex-ante assessments of agricultural policies aimed at promoting sustainable farming practices. Thereby, we apply the same modelling framework to quantify and compare the effectiveness of results-based payments for climate change mitigation measures and precision agricultural technologies in two Swiss case studies. Our results indicate that farmers' cognitive and dispositional factors (e.g., reluctance to change) reduce the uptake of sustainable farming practices by 20–70% compared to simulations using income maximization as the underlying decision-making concept. In contrast, social factors can increase adoption by up to 40%. We conclude that including behavioral factors allows to improve ex-ante policy assessments in the context of sustainable farming practices. In addition, these approaches can highlight the importance of policy instruments that complement traditional economic measures, such as public support for the creation of networks.
A behavioural agent-based modelling approach for the ex-ante assessment of policies supporting precision agriculture
Huber, Robert; Späti, Karin; Finger, Robert (2023)
Ecological Economics
Precision agriculture technologies can help reduce nitrogen losses and the associated negative environmental impacts. As the adoption rate of such technologies in small-scale farming systems is still low, additional policy measures are required to support their broader application. We provide an ex-ante assessment of policy measures (payments for reduced nitrogen, subsidy for the technology or area subsidies) to incentivize the adoption of sensing technologies for site-specific nitrogen fertilization with a specific focus on farmers' behavioural characteristics such as reluctance to change and their individual perception of the policy measures. We combine a bio-economic optimization model with data from a choice experiment, survey, and census data in an agent-based modelling framework. We simulate the impact of the policy measures on farmers' adoption decisions in Swiss wheat production. Simulations suggest that for the same level of nitrogen reduction a results-based payment (paying farmers for reduced nitrogen) is 1.5 times more cost-efficient than area-based subsidies and subsidies for technology use. Our results also suggest that considering how farmers perceive costs and benefits decreases the potential to reduce nitrogen input by ∼20%. We conclude that disregarding behavioural factors such as the perception of the instrument may result in a significant overestimation of the policy effect.
Agrarpolitik im Zeitalter der Digitalisierung
Ehlers, Melf-Hinrich; Huber, Robert; Finger, Robert (2021)
Diese Studie untersucht, wie sich die Digitalisierung auf die Agrarpolitik auswirken könnte und welche Chancen sich daraus ergeben. Digitale Technologien halten nicht nur auf landwirtschaftlichen Betrieben Einzug, sondern auch in der Agrar- und Ernährungspolitik. Beispiele sind die digitalisierte Dokumentation von agrar¬politischen Massnahmen, digitale Technologien, wie Satellitenbilder, zur Beobachtung der Landnutzung oder die Analyse digitalisierter Agrardaten in der öffentlichen Verwaltung. Das übergeordnete Ziel des Projektes ‘Agrarpolitik im Zeitalter der Digitalisierung’ ist die Analyse, welche Rolle die Digitalisierung für die Weiterentwicklung der Agrarpolitik spielen kann. Die Ergebnisse der Analyse sollen Entscheidungsgrundlagen für die zukünftige Ausge-staltung der Agrarpolitik bieten. Wir haben verschiedene Szenarien der Digitalisierung der Landwirtschaft identifiziert. In den Szenarien gibt es sehr unterschiedliche Herausforderungen wie agrarpolitische Ziele auch zukünftig erreicht werden. Strategien zur Verbesserung der digitalen Infrastruktur und der Fähigkeiten der involvierten Personen können hier helfen, die Zielerreichung sicherzustellen. Agrarpolitische Instrumente, wie etwa Direktzahlungsprogramme oder Steuern, können mithilfe digitaler Technologien in Zukunft einen geringeren administrativen Aufwand haben. Insbesondere können diese Instrumente anders aufgestellt und damit wirksamer, aber auch kostengünstiger, werden. Sie könnten beispielsweise stärker auf Ergebnisse von Mass-nahmen abzielen, anstatt auf Bewirtschaftungspraktiken. Auch können sie genauer auf Stand¬orte zugeschnitten werden und zeitlich flexibler gestaltet werden. Der Einsatz digitaler Tech¬nologien könnte aber auch Fragen aufwerfen, wie etwa in welchem Ausmass der Staat Zugriff auf betriebliche Daten erhalten soll oder welche Kostenverteilung zwischen Staat und land¬wirtschaftlichen Betrieben entsteht. Unter den vielen in der Digitalisierung der Agrarpolitik einsetzbaren Technologien erfährt die satellitenbasierten Fernerkundung eine grosse Auf-merksamkeit. Auch wenn ihr Einsatzspektrum zur Unterstützung der Agrarpolitik begrenzt ist, könnte diese Technologie in bestimmten Bereichen, wie der Beobachtung der Landnutzung, sehr wirkungsvoll und kostengünstig sein. Möglicherweise verschiebt sich die agrarpolitische Aufmerksamkeit gar in diese Bereiche. Dies ist die erste umfassende Studie zur Digitalisierung in der Agrarpolitik. Sie legt wichtige konzeptionelle Grundlagen für agrarpolitische Entscheidungen, indem sie zukünftige Heraus-forderungen aufzeigt und Lösungen vorschlägt. Da es noch unsicher ist, welche Entwicklungen sich in der Digitalisierung der Agrar- und Ernährungspolitik durchsetzen werden, ist weiterhin eine aufmerksame Beobachtung der Digitalisierung sinnvoll.

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