Research

INTRODUCTION

Global climate change and an increasing population leaves society with few alternatives but to build food systems that are able to provide food security for all despite intensifying extreme weather events (Folke et al. 2010, Ben-Ari et al. 2018). It is the capacity of resilience that allows food systems and their units to retain their functions (food security being the main one) despite shocks and disturbances (Tendall et al. 2015). “Retaining functions” means that a food system, a value chain, or an actor is able to avoid, absorb, and/or withstand a disruption, for example, through the cultivation of drought-resistant plants or maintaining safety reserves of food (Meuwissen et al. 2018). The ability to avoid and to mitigate a disruption is referred to as “withstanding capacity” (this is also often referred to as “persistence” or “robustness”), which describes a tendency of a system to sustain itself, hence including a recovery component (Folke 2006). Should a disruption still occur, an entity should be able to bounce back and recover its functions as soon as possible (e.g., Dominican farmers rushing to replant their banana fields destroyed by Caribbean hurricanes) (Thompson et al. 2023). Resilience, however, is more than an ability to deal with the immediate impact of shocks. The dynamic socio-ecological nexus constantly brings new context-dependent threats and opportunities, which makes it crucial for systems and their units to be able to respond, to adjust, and to evolve beyond the current optimum state, which may not last (Folke et al. 2010). In short, the concept of resilience embraces not only withstanding capacity, but also adaptability and transformability, all of which are crucial capacities for resilient food systems. Adaptability and transformability enable systems to learn and to influence their resilience to improve performance in the face of upcoming disturbances, either by “adapting” (i.e., improving existing systems, resources, and structures), or by “transforming” them into something fundamentally new (Berkhout et al. 2006, Folke et al. 2010).

A food system is a complex, interdependent, and dynamic network based on interactions within biogeophysical and human environments, activities from production to consumption, numerous institutions and policies, and diverse outcomes, including food and environmental security and societal well-being (Ericksen 2008a). A food system is a holistic concept that integrates more specific sequential processes of food value chains, in which the core functions are agricultural production, processing, retail, and transportation activities for particular commodities (Neven 2014). Food value chains can also serve as accessible entry points for addressing food system resilience (Tendall et al. 2015). Resilience aims to maintain the value chain’s functions in the face of shocks, as they ultimately serve to bring food to plates and they provide income for millions of people around the globe. In the context of climate change, the resilience of agricultural food production is a topic of exceptional importance for researchers, policy makers, and the private sector (Meuwissen et al. 2018, Whitfield et al. 2018). There is, however, less research on post-production activities, such as processing, wholesale, retail, and consumption in the context of food value chains’ resilience and the effects of climate change. Below, we briefly summarize existing findings and insights on climate change resilience in different parts of food value chains.

Climate change and its often unexpected extreme manifestations take a toll on farmers and lead to production losses (Vermeulen et al. 2012, Smith et al. 2016, Cottrell et al. 2019), which explains the interest of the public sector and researchers in agricultural resilience. It is known that farmers can enhance their ability to withstand production interruptions by implementing measures that help to decrease the variability of yields and secure economic viability through context-appropriate measures and practices that include, but are not limited to, crop and income diversification, the adaptation of resistant crops, carrying insurance, soil conservation practices, and efficient water use (Cabel and Oelofse 2012, Diogo et al. 2017). When it comes to adapting or transforming their practices, however, farmers often find the process difficult. The costs of improved farming methods, poor access to capital, and a lack of knowledge and institutional support have all been identified as barriers to farmers’ adoption of new practices, both in developing (Masud et al. 2017, Khatri-Chhetri et al. 2019) and developed (Long et al. 2016) countries.

We know significantly less about the resilience of post-production activities related to climate change. In the context of withstanding the effects of climate change, measures taken by actors involved in post-production are mostly focused on redundancy and ensuring the diversity of supply flows, as these may help to secure material flows by diversifying sources for primary products and ensuring flexibility if logistics are disrupted (Evans 2012, Smith et al. 2016). These measures allow both processors and retailers to ensure the continuity of their activities and contribute to food value chain resilience by safeguarding the uninterrupted flow of food to consumers. Actors involved in trade and processing also have their options for contributing to the resilience in food value chains; for example, researchers have argued that market actors need to pay more attention to variabilities in the food supply, as these can indicate the poor state of ecosystems and the loss of biodiversity at sites where the food is produced. Timely recognition and transparent communication could facilitate changes away from agricultural practices that are harmful to ecosystems, to prevent collapses and food disruptions, rather than just reactively sourcing food from elsewhere once a disruption occurs (Crona et al. 2016, Nyström et al. 2019).

In addition to the above, Macfadyen et al. (2015) report that retailers, due to their influential position in value chains, can support the large-scale implementation of agricultural practices by providing and promoting climate-smart technologies to reduce variability in the supply of agricultural goods. Kuhl (2018) suggests that agricultural resilience to climate change would benefit from the improvement of market systems (e.g., improved market incentives for production and increased market efficiency). Long et al. (2016) provide several examples of how large retailers and processors can act as providers of climate-smart agricultural technologies. Ariyawardana et al. (2018) propose that consumers could play a role in the building of food systems’ resilience by paying more for food products with improved climate change adaptation performance, just as they currently do for products with pro-environmental or -social labels. Nevertheless, there is limited evidence on the adaptability and transformability of actors other than farmers against the effects of climate change. Researchers have found that the willingness among post-production actors to implement measures beyond securing their immediate supply is limited, as they are able to diversify their supply sources, which makes them largely insensitive to localized production disruptions (Crona et al. 2016, Nyström et al. 2019).

The intrinsic vulnerability of agricultural production to weather disturbances explains why researchers place so much focus on the resilience of agriculture to climate change. Nevertheless, even when addressing agricultural resilience, analytical frameworks suggest taking a broader perspective of the entire food value chain into account, acknowledging the embeddedness of production into the connected and interconnected networks of various activities (Tendall et al. 2015, Grafton et al. 2019, Meuwissen et al. 2019). Empirical studies still tend to focus on the farm level, where the value chain perspective is typically limited to immediate sales channels (e.g., Alhassan 2020, Paas et al. 2021, Le Goff et al. 2022). There are fewer case studies that include systemic multi-stakeholder perspectives and analyze resilience to climate change by taking into account the interests, issues, and interactions of various stakeholders along value chains (e.g., Crona et al. 2016, Himanen et al. 2016, Merkle et al. 2021). The systemic perspective, however, is now gaining momentum, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects, which were observed in every step of the food value chain (e.g., Cavallo et al. 2020, Ali et al. 2021, Coopmans et al. 2021).

Here, we extend the evidence for climate resilience in food value chains from a multi-stakeholder perspective by conducting a study on the resilience of the Swiss value chains to droughts. According to regional climate projections from 2015, summer precipitation in Switzerland is expected to decrease by 5–20% by 2050 (Kruse and Seidl 2015), which represents a significant threat because Swiss agriculture is mainly rain fed, with less than 2% of land being irrigated (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] 2020). We selected four foods and their respective value chains: milk, beef, wheat, and potatoes. These foods are typical and essential for the Swiss diet (and a European diet in general), and are important for Swiss agriculture, as they account for 41% of the total economic value of the country’s agricultural sector as of 2019—21%, 13%, 2%, and 2% for milk, beef, wheat, and potatoes, respectively (Swiss Federal Statistical Office 2019a). These value chains have a typical hourglass-shaped structure, with thousands of farmers supplying a few large national and hundreds of small local processors (cheese-makers, butchers, bakeries), and a handful of retailers (the two largest dominate 70% of the market share), serving 8.67 million Swiss residents.

Furthermore, we seek to identify measures that enhance the withstanding capacity and elucidate factors that affect the adaptability and transformability aspects of resilience for actors in the milk, beef, wheat, and potato value chains. Participatory and co-learning approaches are recommended for resilience projects (Tendall et al. 2015, Knickel et al. 2018, Meuwissen et al. 2019) and have been widely adopted by researchers (Baca et al. 2014, Lee et al. 2014, Himanen et al. 2016, Khatri-Chhetri et al. 2019, Paas et al. 2021). Transdisciplinarity allows for the incorporation of various knowledge systems and embracing systems and process complexities of resilience practices to explore the resilience-building efforts from a multi-actor perspective. We have adopted a transdisciplinary research approach, based on the interactions of researchers with actors representing different value chain activities (input supply, production, processing, retail, and consumption), to achieve this. Transdisciplinarity allows for the integration of researchers’ and practitioners’ expertise to co-produce results that address specific societal problems by recognizing and highlighting the interests of various stakeholders (e.g., Lang et al. 2012). Using this transdisciplinary approach, we address resilience as a multi-stakeholder problem/solution-navigated field and integrated the experience, knowledge, and interests of various actors (Pohl and Hirsch Hadorn 2007: 36-40, Jahn et al. 2012).

METHODS

Transdisciplinary research approach

The project was co-designed by the research team at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) and the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG) and relied on continuous exchanges between the FOAG and actors representing main value chain activities. This was aimed at co-producing knowledge on the resilience of the Swiss food value chains to validate the study’s intermediate results and to co-design the next steps of the project. The project relies on a mixed-methods approach and includes multiple steps, including participatory activities (a series of workshops with value chains’ representatives) complemented by quantitative surveys.

To organize and conduct a transdisciplinary research process, we used principles proposed by Lang et al. (2012) to design the four phases: context understanding, team building, joint problem framing, and the co-creation of solution-oriented knowledge (Table 1). In this paper, we report on and discuss the results of the fourth phase. The greatest challenge in this project was related to the need to ensure the representative and well-balanced participation of actors from the four food value chains, as each has specific details and includes many stakeholders and actors. To identify key activities related to participating in the transdisciplinary process, in the first phase, understanding the context, we conducted a literature review, expert interviews, and value chain mapping (Table 2). In the second phase, building the team, we invited six experts who were well integrated in input supply, production, processing, retail, and consumption activities and who were active across different value chains. We used their help to review and complement the list of actors, establish contact with them, and gain actors’ trust to join the transdisciplinary process (see Table 2 for the actors involved in the project).

The third phase of the transdisciplinary process, joint problem framing, began in 2017, when stakeholders were invited to jointly discuss and identify the most relevant “problems,” to set the project’s boundaries to prevent an otherwise potentially infinite field of study (Jahn et al. 2012, Lang et al. 2012). In this study, we framed the problems of interest as “potential shocks for the Swiss food value chains.” Actors listed drought as one such shock, and it became a central topic in subsequent research steps. Drought was mentioned as a relevant shock due to its country-wide effect on agriculture and recent occurrences—in 2003, 2015, and 2018—that directly affected most participants (MeteoSchweiz 2018). Furthermore, a decrease in precipitation and its effects are the focus of much Swiss research, and this is mentioned and widely discussed by Swiss food actors in association with the unmitigated effects of climate change (National Centre for Climate Services [NCCS] 2018), which can explain the choice of the workshops’ participants.

This paper summarizes the results of the last (fourth) phase of the transdisciplinary process, the co-creation of solution-oriented knowledge, which aimed to identify solutions for building resilience to droughts. We organized a second series of workshops and complemented it with an in-depth quantitative survey of one of the actor groups, farmers (Table 1). The workshops allowed us to identify measures for building resilience against droughts, the responsibilities for the measures’ adoption, and the barriers that hamper the measures’ implementation. The quantitative survey of farmers aimed to evaluate the current state of the measures’ adoption and the importance of barriers to the measures’ adoption.

Stakeholder workshops and analytical approach

In April and May 2019, four thematic workshops (i.e., milk, beef, wheat, potatoes) were organized under the name “Resilience of the Swiss Food System.” The workshops lasted 3.5 h and included 10–14 stakeholders representing different activities in their respective value chains (Table 3). The workshops were aimed at exploring measures to increase value chains’ resilience to shocks. During the workshops, two shocks were discussed in two separate sessions, one after another. Participants first focused on drought as a shock for their activities, and then on a potential free-trade agreement for agriculture with the European Union, which is not the subject of this paper. The participants included stakeholders active in different activities: agricultural input supply, farmers, processors, retailers, consumers, and representatives of industry organizations that represent the interests of particular value chains and are typical and important stakeholders in the Swiss food value chains. The main criteria for participation in the workshop was the current involvement of a person in the value chain activity and, in the case of members of consumer organizations, a general interest in a specific commodity (i.e., milk, beef, wheat, or potatoes). For the agricultural production activity, at least one participant in each workshop was from the management board of a farmers’ association for a respective commodity. For processing, the participants included representatives of at least one of the largest companies in Switzerland. Most of the participants were involved in the project’s kick-off workshops in 2017.

After an introduction, the participants worked in groups of three to four (these groups were unchanged throughout the workshop), first discussing the topic of drought, and then that of free trade, with a coffee break in between. Each group identified three measures for improving resilience in their value chains, relative to the respective shock. Participants were also asked to list barriers to these measures and assign responsibilities for their implementation among an extended list of stakeholders (value chain actors, institutional players, service providers, consumers). The group work concluded with the presentation and discussion of the measures, barriers, and responsibilities proposed by each group.

The groups consisted of a mix of different activities, according to the multi-stakeholder discussion group method, which is often used in transdisciplinary research (Fry 2021). By mixing actors, we encouraged the exchange of various, often conflicting, opinions, which was especially helpful for the identification of responsibilities and barriers for specific measures, where inter-professional knowledge is required. Also, despite sharing similar professions, individuals can have different views, due to their personal experiences or psychological traits. This is why the combined lists of measures provided by the groups at each of the workshops allowed us to create a richer and balanced picture of the measures. The researchers did not take part in the group discussions, but rather moderated the course of the workshops and then participated in the final discussion of groups’ work outcomes, with the purpose of gaining greater clarity and not altering the outcomes.

The results of the stakeholder workshops were analyzed qualitatively by examining and sorting statements using ATLAS.ti Mac (version 8.4.20) software to identify key themes. The qualitative analysis focused on three key aspects discussed in the workshops: measures, barriers, and responsibilities. These aspects, first, grasp key characteristics of resilience—an interplay between sustaining and developing with change (Folke 2006)—and, second, translate academic concepts into language relevant and understandable for all parties in the transdisciplinary research process (Lang et al. 2012).

The first aspect, “measures,” was defined as actions either currently implemented in the value chains or potentially promising, but not yet implemented, that can help actors withstand and recover from the effects of droughts on their respective value chains and activities. Measures are associated with withstanding capacity and include actions both in preparation for or response to an event of drought. The second aspect, “barriers,” was defined as the various reasons that prevent the implementation or use of the suggested measures, including but not limited to social, technological, informational, institutional, and natural factors and conditions. The third aspect, “responsibilities,” designates specific actors and outlines what actions are needed from them to implement the suggested measures. Both barriers and responsibilities shed light on adaptability and the transformability capacities of the value chains, as they point to the reasons for what impedes changes and dynamics in food system in regard to droughts. Thus, learning about barriers and actors’ roles in implementing measures against droughts allows us to reflect on the potential of the food value chains to build their resilience to climate change.

We narrate the results of this paper following the same logic: first, we report on the proposed measures, then on the barriers and responsibilities, with each having its own section in the Results. In the respective sections, we combine the results of the workshops (qualitative analysis) with quantitative insights on the measures’ current adoption and on perceived importance of the barriers to their implementation. The quantitative insights were obtained through four farmers’ surveys on milk, beef, wheat, and potato production.

Farmers’ surveys

Survey design

Most of the measures identified during the workshops aimed to improve the resilience of production activities; therefore, quantitative surveys were conducted among farmers. The four surveys were mostly identical, with some adjustments made for the relevance in the milk, beef, wheat, and potato production contexts. The objective of the surveys was twofold. First, we aimed to identify to what extent the production measures have already been implemented. The second objective was to study farmers’ views on barriers that hinder the implementation of measures that are supposed to be implemented by farmers.

The surveys were web-based and designed on the SurveyGizmo platform in German and French (the predominant official languages of Switzerland). We conducted pre-tests across the four groups of farmers (i.e., milk, beef, wheat, and potatoes; seven pre-tests were completed in all) in the form of semi-structured interviews with farmers with the relevant specializations to ensure that the questions were clearly and appropriately formulated and context relevant. In addition, during the pre-test interviews, we asked the farmers whether there were measures that were clearly important for fighting the effects of drought but were missing in the surveys. Based on the pre-tests, two important additions were made. First, we included questions about off-farm employment in all four surveys, although this measure was suggested only during the milk workshop. Second, we added an extra measure that was not mentioned at the workshops: the stock of animal feed for the milk and beef farmers. This measure was mentioned more than once during the pre-test interviews, and the interviewees clearly stated that feed supplies are indispensable for farmers’ resilience to droughts. Finally, several adjustments to certain questions were made to ensure they were context relevant. For example, a question on commodity price development during a drought had to be formulated differently for beef: we asked whether the prices for animals have decreased due to the latest drought; whereas, for milk, wheat, and potato farmers, we asked if prices have increased. This was due to the observation that farmers sell more animals when the availability of grass and feed is affected by droughts, which, in theory, should negatively affect prices. In contrast, supplies of milk products, wheat, and potatoes tend to decrease during droughts and prices supposedly increase. The surveys are available upon request.

The four farmers’ surveys: data collection and respondent samples

The online data collection took place in December 2019 and January 2020. Invitations to participate in the surveys were distributed through several channels. First, we received a list of contact details for Swiss farmers provided by the Federal Office for Agriculture and sent emails to them with an invitation and link to take part in an online survey. The invitations were also distributed through farmers’ associations. Some of these groups sent notifications to their members, whereas others included a note in their usual communications.

Once the data collection was complete, the numbers of responses for each cohort were: 312 for milk, 134 for beef, 246 for wheat, and 234 for potatoes, totaling 926 responses. We administered a quality check and removed 75 responses in which some data were missing (distribution: 21, 19, 9, and 26 for the milk, beef, wheat, and potato groups, respectively). We also removed 19 responses (3, 4, 9, and 3, for milk, beef, wheat, and potatoes, respectively) where the reported sizes of the grasslands allotted for dairy and beef and the crop areas for wheat and potatoes exceeded the total farm size (“total farm size,” as formulated in the relevant survey question, included both owned and rented land). In total, 10% of responses were removed. The final samples used for the data analysis came from 288 milk, 111 beef, 228 wheat, and 205 potato farmers, totaling 832 respondents. The data were analyzed descriptively.

We will refer to the respondents of each sample as milk, beef, wheat, or potato farmers, respectively; however, it must be noted that farmers often produce more than one type of product. For example, a milk producer can also be a potato producer. In milk and beef farming, the distinction is even more blurry, as milk producers supply beef as well. Therefore, at the beginning of the milk and beef surveys, we suggested that respondents choose which survey to take—milk or beef. Therefore, the milk and beef distinctions depended on self-affiliation by the respondents. The resulting beef sample was much smaller than that of the milk sample (288 and 111, respectively), and the majority of self-affiliated beef farmers answered to not to produce milk (89%). The smaller beef farmer sample resonates with statistics on milk and beef farming: 70% of Swiss cattle are milk cows, whereas only 16% and 14% of cattle are dual purpose or specialized beef breeds, respectively (Python et al. 2018).

The average total farm size in every sample was larger than the average farm size for Switzerland as a whole (32.9 ha for milk, 32.3 ha for beef, 38 ha for wheat, and 36.6 ha for potatoes, compared with 20.5 ha for Switzerland in general (Bundesamt für Landwirtschaft [BLW] 2019) (Table 4). In our milk and beef samples, farms under 20 ha were underrepresented (15% in milk, 11% in beef) compared with the national data, where 34% of beef cattle are on farms of less than 20 ha. Milk and beef farms are also overrepresented in the plains zone (66% and 64%, respectively compared with 36% of all cattle farmers), and underrepresented in mountain areas, Zones 3 and 4 (4% and 6%, respectively, compared with 14% of all cattle farmers). The same applies for the wheat and potato samples; they were slightly overrepresented in the plains zone (83% and 91%, respectively, compared with 75% and 72% of the national average, respectively). Finally, the proportion of organic farms in our sample was higher than the national average: 19% for milk and 24% in beef, compared with 16% of all cattle farms, and 14% and 20% in wheat and potato farm samples, compared with 10% and 16% in the national production, respectively (Swiss Federal Statistical Office 2019b). In summary, all of our samples are overrepresented with larger farms, farms in plains areas, and organic farms.

RESULTS

Measures to increase resilience against droughts and their current adoption

Measures suggested at the stakeholders’ workshops

The workshop participants suggested measures for increasing the value chains’ resilience against droughts and specified what activity each measure targets and who should implement the measure (Table 5).

In all four workshops, most of the measures to increase value chain resilience are consistently focused on the production step (i.e., they are aimed at helping farmers to deal with the effects of drought). Measures such as irrigation, drought-tolerant varieties, and the secured purchase of animal feed are supposed be implemented by farmers to prevent their physical losses, whereas measures such as carrying insurance and arranging for off-farm income are meant to compensate for economic losses induced by droughts. However, not all measures aimed at the production step of the value chains can be implemented at the farm level. Those such as securing the purchase of animal feed, the adjustment of quality requirements, price policies, and the introduction of resilience premiums campaigns where consumers are given an opportunity to pay more for a product to help farmers are supposed to be implemented by other actors in the value chains (e.g., input supply, processing, or retail), but are aimed at helping farmers to deal with the effects of droughts.

Although most of the measures are focused on the production step, some measures, such as securing materials flows through imports or the storage of raw materials, are aimed at increasing the resilience of other actors (processors, retailers, and consumers) in the face of production failures (disruptions) due to drought. Furthermore, the price policy measures were proposed as a collaborative effort aimed at aiding actors whose costs have increased due to drought. These actors are likely to be farmers, but are not necessarily so. During the beef and potato farmers’ workshops, participants suggested making improvements to the value chain’s transparency, which would, indirectly, help actors by improving communication, even though this does not target any of them specifically.

Following the patterns observed in the four workshops, we grouped the measures into three categories (Fig. 1). Later in the paper, we will refer to them as: (i) “farmers’ measures,” measures to be implemented by farmers; (ii) “value chain measures aimed at farmers,” for those measures aimed at production but implemented by other actors in the value chains; and (iii) “value chain measures aimed at other activities,” referring to measures aimed at increasing the resilience of other activities of the value chains against droughts.

Adoption and availability of farmer measures and value chain measures aimed at farmers: evidence from the farmers’ surveys

Through the farmers’ surveys, we explored measures’ adoption by farmers and the value chain measures aimed at farmers. Given that the latter have a direct impact on the production step and that most farmers in our samples reported to have been affected by droughts (87%, 66%, 80%, and 82% in the milk, beef, wheat, and potato samples, respectively; see Append. 1), we deemed it appropriate to consider farmers’ past experiences as evidence for the adoption of the value chain measures aimed at them.

The highest adoption rate was observed for amassing stocks of animal feed (70% and 63% of milk and beef farmers, respectively) and irrigation for potatoes (57%) (Append. 2). For other measures, the adoption rate did not exceed 50%; insurance had the lowest adoption rate in all four groups compared with other measures (1%, 4%, 14%, and 11% for milk, beef, wheat, and potato farmers, respectively).

The results of the farmers’ surveys showed that the value chain measures aimed at them (Append. 3) were not universally adopted in the value chain. For example, 50% of the milk and beef farmers reported experiencing an increased price of hay. Furthermore, farmers reported to have been negatively affected by price developments during droughts, rather than having been supported through them. Very few farmers reported having received higher product prices during droughts (e.g., 3% of wheat farmers and 4% of milk farmers). Also, 45% of milk and 19% of beef farmers reported a decrease in animal prices during droughts. Such decreases can happen because farmers start selling more animals once there is a lack of feed on the market. However, our participants made it clear that, although an increase in local supply due to droughts can impact the animal price, this should not be regarded as the sole or main factor, because pricing dynamics are influenced by other factors, such as import regulations, which determine market saturation.

Barriers that hamper the implementation of measures against droughts

The workshops’ participants identified barriers and challenges that hamper the implementation of measures against droughts. We first present barriers to farmers’ efforts as identified during the workshops and the extent to which farmers themselves perceive them as barriers, information that we gleaned from the surveys (Fig. 2). Then, we introduce the barriers for other actors listed during the workshops (Table 6).

Barriers hampering the implementation of farmers’ measures: evidence from workshops and farmers’ surveys

Adoption challenges

Several barriers associated with the farmers’ implementation of measures against droughts are associated with the farmers themselves and their farms. There are “objective physical constraints,” such as topography, soil types, or the availability of water sources for irrigation, which gives farmers little flexibility, given the dearth of land available for agriculture in Switzerland. A high workload and the absence of employment options can also be considered barriers that prevent farmers from holding off-farm agricultural jobs. Furthermore, participants pointed out “financial constraints” associated with the costs of the measures’ implementation and use, such as irrigation costs and insurance premiums. The latter, in fact, were explicitly reported to be perceived as too high compared with the drought risks, which explains the very low adoption and planned adoption rates for insurance, as we learned from the farmers’ surveys. Other barriers that hamper the farmers’ implementation of these measures are associated with “decision making” and need to consider “trade-offs.” For instance, farmers’ decisions on which potato and wheat varieties to plant are made under a veil of uncertainty, as the weather or pest risks for the entire growing season cannot be predicted. Farmers might also choose other varieties, if drought-tolerant cultivars show inferior performance in aspects that farmers prioritize more highly. Financial constraints can be considered as a decision-making trade-off as well; farmers often opt to avoid extra farming costs (e.g., no insurance, no irrigation) and accept a higher risk of losses. The trade-offs and decision making also depend on farmers’ perceptions of drought risks; thus, “awareness of drought risks” was listed by the participants as one of the barriers to implementation of the production-step measures.

Lack of solutions

Workshop participants noted that decisions to adopt or not adopt a solution against a drought are, to a certain extent, dependent on farmers’ subjective perceptions of drought risks and benefits. They also clearly stated that some solutions are objectively lacking (i.e., they are too insufficient or inefficient to become commonly adopted). For example, challenges and barriers associated with breeding directly affect the availability and quality of drought-tolerant varieties. Participants mentioned that high investments, Switzerland’s small agricultural market, and sluggish processes (research, trials, approval, and large-scale seed production) that can take up to 15 yr in the case of potatoes, are the main barriers that, along with farm-gate barriers, affect the adoption of drought-tolerant varieties. Furthermore, participants noted that agricultural insurance has yet to become a solution for many Swiss farmers, as risks of droughts, until recently, were perceived as acceptable and the market for drought-related insurance products was small, resulting in rather niche solutions with high premiums. Finally, participants suggested that a lack of technologically innovative scalable solutions that are both affordable and water efficient (which is especially important, in light of possible water scarcities during droughts) is a barrier that can hamper the implementation of irrigation as a measure against droughts.

Lack of demand

Participants suggested that the demand side of the value chains (processors, retailers, consumers) can create barriers against the implementation of some measures against drought. In the case of potatoes, participants reported that consumers have strong preferences for certain varieties, and these are not necessarily drought tolerant. In addition, retailers, processors, and wholesalers have requirements regarding potato size and biophysical properties, such as starch content and storage durability. Therefore, clients’ preferences can decrease potato farmers’ flexibility regarding the choice of which potato varieties to grow. Participants also mentioned that strong social positions against genetically modified products have reduced cultivation potential.

Summary: prevailing barriers

Some barriers appeared to be more prevalent than others (Fig. 2, “Barriers listed in the survey” and “Percentage of respondents selected it as a barrier”). Several major bottlenecks were observed in each of the four value chains. For example, more than half of the farmers sampled in each value chain reported being unaware of insurance solutions against droughts (83%, 81%, 58%, and 57% for milk, beef, wheat, and potatoes, respectively), which is much higher than the results concerning the barriers related to the trade-offs (i.e., high premium costs or perceptions of drought risk). Therefore, in line with the workshops’ results, this high unawareness rate is also indicative of a small market for insurance products. Another prevalent barrier was observed concerning off-farm employment. A high on-farm workload was reported as a barrier, with the percentage of participants noting that being strikingly higher than those noting a lack of opportunities for employment. Regarding drought-tolerant varieties, no universal barrier was observed in the four value chains. For potato farmers, the demand for certain varieties clearly plays an important role, with 71% reporting not planting drought-tolerant varieties because their clients have very specific variety demands. For wheat farmers, by contrast, client preferences do not seem to play such a decisive role (20% noted this as a barrier). Important barriers against drought-tolerant varieties for wheat farmers included personal assessments of drought risk (45%), the importance of other criteria (37%), and a lack of knowledge on drought-tolerant varieties (30%). Furthermore, 40% of beef farmers had a similar perception, that drought risks are low, and 40% reported that they prefer feed storage, rather than planting drought-tolerant varieties for animal-feed crops. No major bottlenecks were observed in the milk farmers’ responses (i.e., they seem to have different reasons for not opting for drought-tolerant varieties), which suggests that the barriers are context specific, rather than activity wide.

Barriers hampering the implementation of measures aimed at farmers and measures aimed at other activities: evidence from the stakeholders’ workshops

During the workshops, the discussion on barriers that prevent measures’ implementation by other value chain actors (i.e., not farmers) focused on two main aspects: actors’ conflicting interests and the lack of instruments for resolving these conflicting interests (Table 6).

As the suggested measures rely strongly on collaboration among actors, conflicting interests were identified as a barrier for six out of seven measures. For example, the price-policy measure suggested at all four workshops requires the consideration and acknowledgment of drought’s effects on costs by the value chain actors, who would need to agree to redistribute the value and even to sacrifice part of their profits to share the risks. Participants also suggested that consumers would not be willing to accept increased prices of food products, which is another example of an interest-conflict barrier for price-based interventions. For the potato value chain, heterogeneous demands among processors, traders, and consumers, as well as their conflicting interests, were also mentioned as hampering the relaxation of requirements for potato quality, should potato production be affected by a drought. For example, whereas consumers might be more open to accepting imperfect potato quality, traders have very strict policies concerning shelf life and are unwilling to accept risks. Retailers mentioned that visible imperfections would possibly alarm some consumer segments and create mistrust. The conflicting interests barrier becomes even more difficult to deal with when actors have different levels of market power.

The workshop participants suggested that a lack of tools and solutions to help resolve conflicting interests is another barrier that hampers collaboration-based measures against droughts. There are no swift collaborative mechanisms for the recognition and distribution of costs induced by droughts, and no procedures in place allow for the immediate redistribution of such costs. Reducing the number of food labels (e.g., on quality, organic farming, origin, etc.) was suggested as a means of increasing transparency and improving the flow of information in the chains, but this would deprive actors from the opportunity to differentiate themselves in the market and thus compromise their competitive advantage.

Overcoming barriers: actors responsible for building resilience and their roles, evidence from the stakeholders’ workshops

During the workshops, participants created lists of key actors responsible for building resilience to address barriers (Table 7). The lists of responsible actors clearly show that the implementation of almost all measures requires efforts from several actors and stakeholders of the value chains, and even the implementation of the farmers’ measures is not dependent on farmers alone.

Actors responsible for the implementation of farmers’ measures and those aimed at farmers

Not surprisingly, farmers were identified as key players responsible for the implementation of drought-tolerant varieties, irrigation, insurance, and off-farm employment measures. Implementing these requires farmers to be aware of and practical about their risks and capacities for making informed trade-offs. However, the workshop participants made it clear that farmers are not the only players responsible for these measures’ implementation. Interventions by research institutions are needed for those measures that require new technical solutions, such as drought-tolerant varieties and efficient irrigation. Farmer consulting firms and farming schools support farmers in making informed decisions by raising their awareness of possible risks, disseminating information on existing solutions and innovations, and educating farmers on their use. The role of the state in resilience building, according to the participants, consists of improving the availability of several production-step measures through investments in technologies and research for irrigation and drought-tolerant varieties and the provision of subsidies for agricultural insurance. Interestingly, at the beef farmers’ workshop, some participants expressed a view that opposed the state’s support of insurance and argued that, to be relevant and economically sustainable, the insurance market should develop and mature naturally based on the demand from farmers. Although such conflicting opinions emerged only once during the four workshops, this nevertheless indicates that direct state intervention can be a controversial topic.

In addition to facilitation efforts by the state, research, and consulting bodies, participants suggested that the implementation of drought-resistant varieties requires the demand to adapt. In the case of potatoes, this means that actors engaged in post-production activities, such as wholesaling, processing, and retail, should accept drought-tolerant varieties, which would possibly require them to adjust their storage and processing facilities and protocols. Consumers were also identified as influential players because of their preferences for certain potato varieties, which affects what farmers plant. Participants in the beef and milk workshops stated that, if consumers or society in a broader sense would tolerate genetically modified plants, it would significantly facilitate the breeding process.

Actors responsible for the implementation of measures aimed at other activities

The measures that are supposed to be implemented by other actors in the value chains (wholesalers, processors, and retailers) require them to recognize the effects of droughts on actors in their value chains and to be open to collaboration. The workshops’ participants suggested that these measures also require support and facilitation from industry organizations that should motivate actors to engage in discussions, negotiations, and collaborations and provide a platform for the same. Furthermore, participants identified farmers’ associations as being responsible for promoting farmers’ interests in these discussions and negotiations, to overcome power imbalances. This is important, given that farmers are the primary beneficiaries of most of these measures (see Table 7). Furthermore, price-based measures and the relaxation of quality requirement measures need consumers’ support and solidarity. Participants suggested that media and consumer organizations should create awareness at the consumer level to motivate them to collaborate by paying more during a drought or accepting potatoes with visual imperfections.

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

In this study, we explored resilience in Switzerland’s food value chains from a multi-stakeholder perspective. We found that improving resilience against droughts requires a variety of measures and actions from different value chain actors, from input suppliers to consumers. However, the implementation of these measures is hampered by multiple barriers for all actors.

How food system resilience can be built by food system actors and why value chain collaboration is needed

Drought primarily affects production, but farmers’ potential for building resilience is limited

The measures proposed at our workshops to prevent the disruption of material flows (e.g., agricultural products) in the value chains were heavily focused on production in all four value chains. This reflects the view that production activities are especially exposed to extreme weather events, compared with other activities in the food system (Himanen et al. 2016) and rationalizes the fact that most prior studies have focused on building resilience within the agriculture sector. The measures suggested during these workshops were quite generic and can be found in both the scientific literature and in practical guides for agricultural adaptation to droughts (see, for instance, Knutson et al. 2011, Khatri-Chhetri et al. 2019). Our results also emphasize that financial stability is an important aspect of resilience in agricultural production, as extreme weather events are known for causing economic losses due to both production failures and increased management costs associated with some of the measures aimed at preventing such failures, like irrigation (Ericksen 2008b, Grafton et al. 2019). Although measures such as insurance and off-farm sources of income are mentioned and used as financial remedies (Mase et al. 2017, Khatri-Chhetri et al. 2019), our results suggest that market-based measures could also be considered to prevent or compensate for economic losses among farmers. For instance, much of the production losses, even during “normal” times, happen because clients (processors and retailers) are uninterested in buying produce that does not fit the standards, often due to visual imperfections (Devin and Richards 2018, Johnson et al. 2019). This becomes an even greater problem when product quality is affected by adverse weather. Thus, participants suggested that the relaxation of quality standards would lessen farmers’ economic losses and, thus, increase production resilience to droughts.

The potato value chain represents yet another example for how a lack of market power limits farmers’ potential to build resilience. In our study, clients’ preferences were named as a barrier that hinders potato and wheat farmers from cultivating drought-tolerant varieties. In the case of potatoes, clients’ preferences created one of the largest bottlenecks observed in our study. This illustrates how market standards and consumer preferences can outweigh ecological conditions and risks in farmers’ decision making, which can, in turn, make them more vulnerable to weather disturbances. Furthermore, this finding supports the argument by Hendrickson (2015) that demands from market systems are often incompatible with goals for agricultural resilience, and they deprive farmers of the capacity to adapt; thus, they substantially undermine their resilience. With this in mind, we join other authors (i.e., Macfadyen et al. 2015, Oliver et al. 2018, Nyström et al. 2019) who argue that post-production activities hold exceptional power for making large-scale changes; hence, their engagement in the building resilience in agriculture, and food systems in general, is vital.

Market-based interventions as a means of sharing the burden among value chain actors

The market-based interventions proposed during our workshops align with the suggestions in the literature that sharing the costs of climate change adaptation among different actors (including consumers) could increase the resilience of a food system (Ariyawardana et al. 2018, Vroegindewey and Hodbod 2018). Kahiluoto (2020: 853), in line with Beske et al. (2014), succinctly justified the need for collaborative action: “food systems are only as resilient as their weakest actor.” Indeed, our results indicate that farmers, who are primarily exposed to the effects of droughts, have limited resources to accommodate measures to help themselves and they must often prioritize other considerations over drought resilience. This is consistent with previous findings that resilience strategies compete for scarce resources, such as money and time, and an improved resilience to specific disturbances can come at the expense of other farm operations (Darnhofer 2010, Ashkenazy et al. 2018). It is suggested that the diversity and redundancy of responses increases farmers’ resilience, but at the same time leads to price increases and can result in the decreased efficiency of other functions (Choptiany et al. 2015, Grafton et al. 2019). If fully borne by farmers, the costs induced by climate change can have long-term detrimental consequences. First, increased resilience costs coupled with limited capital are major factors impeding sustainable practices among farmers in general (Knutson et al. 2011). Achieving higher productivity through input-fueled intensification and specialization is one of the obvious options for compensating for increasing costs (Milestad et al. 2010), and this is subjectively perceived by farmers themselves as a means for achieving greater resilience (Perrin and Martin 2021). Second, seemingly enhanced agricultural resilience could, in fact, turn into “coerced” resilience, wherein a production system is decoupled from its ecological system and collapses as soon as human efforts are discontinued (Rist et al. 2014, Ashkenazy et al. 2018, Angeler et al. 2020). Therefore, we suggest that creating a diverse set of responses to droughts through supporting networks and market mechanisms, such as price compensation or the relaxation of quality requirements, would provide a safety net for farmers and thereby not only facilitate their short-term recovery, but also contribute to improved resilience and the sustainability of agriculture and, thus, food systems.

Why the status quo persists despite the need to build resilience in food systems

Our results show that the implementation of measures to fight the effects of droughts is hampered by a variety of barriers, which results in only a modest adoption rate for most of them. The major adoption barriers for farmers’ measures are primarily associated with the need for trade-offs, as many farmers (despite being affected by droughts in the past) deem the risk of drought as not yet high enough to prioritize over other considerations, especially in the beef and wheat production milieus. This is consistent with previous findings that highlight the problems of allocating scarce resources to accommodate various production needs and the effects of personal evaluation of risks on adaptation behaviors (Grothmann and Patt 2005, Darnhofer 2010, Li et al. 2017). The results of our workshops suggest that the barriers also result from challenges presented to actors who could facilitate farmers’ adaptation. For example, researchers cannot quickly develop varieties for small regions (such as Switzerland) because breeding is a complicated, expensive, and long process. In another example, insurance providers offer expensive premiums, due to the high weather risks. This is in accordance with the study by Long et al. (2016), who highlighted that the barriers faced by technology providers play an important role in agricultural adaptation to climate change.

Participants in the stakeholders’ workshops suggested that value chain actors other than farmers could contribute to building agricultural resilience by creating back-up mechanisms for farmers in cases of extreme weather events or by facilitating or incentivizing farmers’ adaptation to climate change. However, the participants also outlined several reasons that hamper the practical realization of such contributions. Conflicting interests in various combinations were most often suggested as a barrier. For instance, the relaxation of quality requirements for potatoes could help farmers, but increase risks of shelf-life concerns and, thus, compromise food security. Furthermore, the relaxation of quality requirements is extremely difficult for processors, as large-scale processing requires a uniformity of inputs. Processing and storage require certain biophysical qualities, which determines the demand and thus farmers’ choice of varieties to grow. Although the processors and retailers can adapt their requirements, doing so is a difficult, slow, and potentially expensive process, due to the scale of their activities. Furthermore, the participants pointed out that post-production actors have the opportunity to secure their materials flows with imports or stocks, in cases of production failures, thus minimizing a drought’s impact on their activity. For this reason, there is little incentive for them to help producers by partially accepting the physical or financial implications of droughts, and producers do not possess the equal market power to promote such measures on their own. Furthermore, studies suggest that geographical distance disincentivizes the food industry from sharing risks in production (Crona et al. 2016, Oliver et al. 2018). The Swiss case study shows that a smaller distance does not quite solve the problem. Switzerland is a small country; people working in the food system often literally know each other and communicate intensively. Still, as our results show, the conflict of interests persists, which suggests that simply reducing distance (geographically or information wise) between actors is not enough to build resilient food value chains and food systems.

Although we have shown that many barriers can significantly hamper farmers’ adaptation efforts, climate change itself provides motivation for them to change. Experiences with extreme weather events, along with an increased awareness of climate change risks, has been shown to motivate adaptation behaviors (Li et al. 2017, Mase et al. 2017, Grüneis et al. 2018). Therefore, it is possible that the increasing incidence of droughts and associated losses will force farmers to prioritize drought-dealing measures in decision making. Post-production and consumption, by contrast, are currently protected against the impacts of climate change, even if domestic production is temporarily disrupted; this fulfils the aim of a resilient Swiss food system: “to provide sufficient, appropriate and accessible food to all [Swiss residents], in the face of various and even unforeseen disturbances,” as Tendall et al. (2015: 19) commented. However, our results suggest that the security achieved through substitutions disincentivizes value chain actors from contributing to building true agricultural resilience against the effects of climate change in the long term. Other studies have drawn similar conclusions on a global scale, demonstrating how the efforts to ensure an at-all-times predictable flow of food through substitutions successfully masks challenges and collapses in production, instead of creating stimuli to prevent them (Crona et al. 2016, Nyström et al. 2019).

Limitations

The present study on building resilience to droughts is based on four Swiss food value chains; therefore, generalizing the findings to other countries and contexts should be done with care. Nevertheless, by comparing the results of our study with others’ works, we can observe that the challenges to the Swiss food value chains regarding building resilience to climate change are, in certain respects, similar to those reported in other regions. For instance, our results indicate that, despite receiving extensive state support, Swiss farmers are still facing trade-offs in their decision making, and resilience measures compete for financial and time resources with other practices, just as Darnhofer (2010) showed for the Austrian context, Li et al. (2017) did for the Hungarian context, and Knutson et al. (2011) showed for farmers in the USA. This can explain why the need for value chain measures emerged regardless of Swiss agriculture already being heavily supported by the state. Therefore, it may be assumed that value chain support for production may be even more critical in agricultural systems that enjoy less support from the state; this, nevertheless, requires further research. We also found that the demands of traders, processors, and consumers overrule farming adaptation considerations. This is in line with Hendrickson’s (2015) findings, which examined several agricultural commodities in the U.S. market. We also observed that the Swiss value chains, to a certain extent, follow the same pattern of “decoupling” between agricultural production and traders, processors, and consumers, just like they do in globalized value chains, as described by Crona et al. (2016) and Nyström et al. (2019).

In this study, we discussed and collected various measures for improving resilience in food value chains and held extensive discussions with different groups of actors. However, we did not aim to collect all possible measures that could improve resilience. Also, testing measures’ objective performance, their context-dependent relevance, and the objectivity of barriers’ perceptions by farmers and other actors remained beyond the scope of this study.

The set of resilience-enhancing measures included ones aimed at helping production by processors, retailers, and consumers. We argue that this is unlikely to be relevant only within the Swiss context (especially given the plethora of strong barriers to such measures), but it emerged from our transdisciplinary research design where the post-production actors were engaged in joint discussions with producers. However, although research-induced discussions among practitioners certainly allowed for the opening of non-conventional collaborative perspectives into resilience building, one could see this as a limitation and question the probability of a similar discussion in a business setting that could lead to binding agreements. At the same time, our results indicate that research, and transdisciplinary research processes in particular, has a potentially mediating role to play, as it could unveil the contradictions among actors’ interests and evoke solutions that are unlikely to emerge otherwise.

The farmers’ surveys that were conducted after the workshops allowed us to understand the extent of the measures’ implementation and to study farmers’ perspectives on implementation barriers. We aimed to obtain more information through surveys of other actors (processors, wholesalers, and retailers), but faced several difficulties. First, the number of respondents among these actors was insufficient for a meaningful analysis, and larger companies were reluctant to provide detailed information on their current or planned activities. That is why, in this paper, we focus on and report the qualitative information about post-production activities obtained during the workshops, although we do acknowledge that additional, quantitative, insights could have enriched the results.

Lastly, the set of resilience measures addressed in this work are biased toward droughts, as this was the specific focus of the study. Nevertheless, we strongly believe that our major conclusions regarding the need for the value chain approach can be generalized to the resilience building related to climate change in general. We acknowledge that the study is based on a limited sample of practitioners, and retailers were underrepresented compared with other actors. Therefore, the set of measures, as well as lists of barriers and key players, might not be exhaustive. Therefore, our study should be considered as a road map that can provide indications for possible directions for resilience building and further research on the topic, but not as a precise action plan.

CONCLUSION

Our study has shown that practitioners see the resilience of food value chains mainly in terms of agricultural resilience, which resonates with the fact that scientific and practical literature discussions on building resilience and adaptation in food systems related to climate change focus mainly on farmers. However, we argue that synonymizing the food system’s or value chain’s resilience with agricultural resilience should be done extremely carefully. On the one hand, the focus on the resilience of agriculture, indeed, highlights its vulnerability to the effects of climate change and results in substantial efforts to design and evaluate measures and strategies to build agricultural resilience. On the other hand, such a focus can be treacherous, as it narrows down the understanding of food system resilience and can create a belief that farmers are the only ones responsible for this. Such an attitude could limit opportunities to build long-term food system resilience. We must mention, too, that we do not imply that farmers should outsource all resilience building to other value chains’ actors, nor do we want our results to be interpreted as other actors being solely responsible for the current lack of action in building food system resilience. However, we believe that the findings of our study emphasize the importance of the stronger inclusion of value chain actors other than farmers in the process of building the food system’s resilience to droughts and to climate change in general.

In summary, our study provides suggestions for how the food value chains could benefit from the engagement of various actors, including consumers. The results of the stakeholders’ workshops and farmers’ surveys showed that building resilience to droughts is a challenging task that requires actors in the value chains to act beyond their immediate needs. For post-production actors and consumers, this means sharing the risks borne by farmers to provide extra redundancy for the production step in face of climatic shocks. Furthermore, our results indicate that post-production actors and consumers can create barriers to agricultural adaptation to droughts, thus providing additional evidence that the engagement of processors, retailers, and consumers is essential for building resilience. Nevertheless, low exposure to climatic disturbances, coupled with the presence of replacing mechanisms to ensure materials flows, disincentivizes post-production actors from investing in building resilience. Drawing on the barriers outlined by the practitioners, we strongly suggest that more research be done to explore possible motivations and incentives for value chain actors other than farmers to build resilience in the food system in response to climate change.

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