News | MAGNET

Marijke Kuiper inducted to the GTAP Research Fellow Hall of Fame.

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

We are very proud that our colleague Marijke Kuiper was inducted into the GTAP Research Fellow Hall of Fame at the 26th Annual Conference on Global Economic Analysis that took place in Bordeaux, from 14 to 16 June. The GTAP Hall of fame lists all persons that provided significant and continuing contributions to the development of GTAP. Congrats Marijke!

Presentation of MAGNET Food and Nutrition Security results at Oxford University seminar on ‘Global Shortages in a Changing Climate’.

Fri, 09 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Saeed Moghayer was an invited speaker to ‘Global Shortages in a Changing Climate’ seminar at Oxford University to present and diescuss MAGNET foresight modelling foresight scenario results on food and nutrition security on May 12th.

Elisa Bardazzi received her PhD degree

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Today our team member Elisa Bardazzi successfully defended her PhD in Science and Management of Climate Change at the Ca’ Foscari University in Venice. Congrats Elisa!

Marcos Dominguez received his PhD degree

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Today our team member Marcos Dominguez successfully defended his PhD, titled “Road to a Healthier Mexico: The influence of price signals, information, stress and consciousness on food choices” at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Congrats Marcos!

MAGNET team leader Hans van Meijl meets Dutch minister of agriculture

Mon, 06 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

On March 6 the Dutch Minister of Agriculture, Piet Adema, visited Wageningen University & Research (WUR). MAGNET team leader Hans van Meijl was among the group of WUR researchers that was invited for the meeting.

Source: LinkedIn

MAGNET analysis featured in EU Agricultural Outlook report

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Today, the European Commission published the yearly EU agricultural outlook report, which presents the outlook for major EU agricultural markets, income and environment from now until 2032. This time, the report includes also a short chapter analysing some dimensions of food security using a selected set of indicators, provided also by the MAGNET model (see section 5).

Source: https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/data-and-analysis/markets/outlook/medium-term_en

MAGNET model presented at the Wageningen model and data steward workshop

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Jason Levin-Koopman from the MAGNET team presented the MAGNET model and operational philosophy to an audience of modelers and data stewards from Wageningen UR, during the Wageningen model and data steward workshop.

In addition to presenting the model itself, the presentation focused on the importance of teamwork in maintaining a flexible module based, continuously evolving model and how this way of operating can assist in collaborating across models and disciplines.

MAGNET colleagues ran Half Marathon Amsterdam

Mon, 05 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Last October 16th, our colleagues Willem-Jan and Marcos had a blast at Half Marathon Amsterdam. This event is the biggest half marathon of the Netherlands and leads participants through the center of Amsterdam and ends in the Olympic Stadium.

Some comments about Willem-Jan’s experience: “…I had a blast and managed to get under my stated goal of two hours! It was tough cookie though, especially the last couple of kilometers.” This event was particularly especial for him, as he also ran this half distance marathon to raise money for cancer research on behalf of his sister. As smooth as a MAGNET simulation run without “errors”, he reached both his predicted run finish time and fund-raising target.

Marcos ended his race season buy running in Amsterdam. This year, he also completed his first Middle Distance Triathlon at Almere. This is what Marcos commented about his half marathon experience: “…I just wanted to see how fast I could go without a run specific training. I held my ambitious targeted run pace (finish in 1h35m) only until the 12k mark, towards the end I blew up and just aimed to finish. Yet, I am happy that my body could handle such distance after a fully packed race season.” His finish time was 1h46m. So just a few DSS-like “warnings” along Marcos’ run, but this race was the “cherry on top” for him in 2022.

BrightSpace launch

Tue, 29 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A new project entitled the BrightSpace Project funded under Horizon Europe is launched to design a roadmap for effective and sustainable strategies for assessing and addressing the challenges of EU agriculture to navigate within a Safe and Just Operating Space.

At the kick-off meeting, hosted by Wageningen Economic Research between 30 November and 1 December 2022, the partners discuss how the project can address current challenges to policymakers in the EU and draw up a road map for the first year of the project. To ensure that the project meets the EU’s policy needs in the short- and long-term, representatives of the European Commission, as well as noted experts in agricultural policy and impact assessment will participate in the kick-off meeting. An important point on the agenda is to discuss how recent developments may impact on the proposed research agenda.

“To assess the impact of the current COVID and Ukraine crises and reverse unfavourable long-term trends related to EU agriculture, there is an urgent need to significantly change agriculture related policies. Policy makers and opinion leaders, however, often lack sufficient information to gauge the likely effects of a Safe and Just Operating Space crises on their country. Thus, they miss the opportunity to identify, design, and implement policy actions that can best avoid short- and long-term risk and take advantage of opportunities.” concludes Hans van Meijl, Brightspace scientific coordinator and chief economist at Wageningen Economic Research.

The MAGNET model will be used in several work packages to assess the EU agriculture Safe and Just Operating Space.

Contact: Hans van Meijl

Hans van Meijl receives citation award from Web of Science

Mon, 28 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

We are proud to share that Hans van Meijl, a “father”of our MAGNET CGE model, has been awarded a “Highly Cited Researcher”in 2022. Highly Cited Researchers have demonstrated significant and broad influence reflected in their publication of multiple highly cited papers over the last decade. These highly cited papers rank in the top 1% by citations for a field or fields and publication year in the Web of Science™. Of the world’s population of scientists and social scientists, Highly Cited Researchers™ are 1 in 1,000.”

This is a good news for our MAGNET work and all the MAGNET team that has contributed to that. Hans can thus take over the role of Andrzej Tabeau (currently retired) who received this honor in the past years.

Contact: Hans van Meijl

MAGNET Summer School 2022

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In the week of August 29 – September 2, Wageningen Economic Research in collaboration with Wageningen University hosted the first MAGNET Summer School - Global Change and the Challenge of Sustainably Feeding a Growing Planet. MSc and/or PhD students with prior economic and mathematical knowledge were eligible to apply. There were 9 participants across different European institutions that were interested in MAGNET model applications in the areas of bioeconomy, food security and others.

The theoretical part of the course introduced general equilibrium theory and applications in a systematic way - from the basics of CGE modelling, introduction to GTAP, to specifics of MAGNET model, its modules and the potential future advancements. The practical part under the guidance of experienced MAGNET modellers provided the participants a unique opportunity to build step-by-step their own simple CGE model in Gempack software.

The full week MAGNET Summer School also provided the opportunity to get to know the participants and the lecturers in a more informal way.

Given the positive feedback received from the participants it is possible there will be a follow-up MAGNET course for more advanced users. Potentially interested students can already send email to hans.vanmeijl@wur.nl.

Contact: Hans van Meijl

BrightSpace proposal has reached the stage of grant agreement preparation

Tue, 11 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The BrightSpace project, coordinated by Wageningen Economic Research was selected for funding within the Horizon Europe funding schema. The objective of BrightSpace is to design effective and sustainable strategies for assessing and addressing the challenges of EU agriculture to navigate within a safe and just operating space, including planetary boundaries. BrightSpace will provide a set of analytical instruments to experiment, analyse, and coordinate the effects of innovative governance structures and policies related to agriculture to navigate within a safe and just operating space. The project is expected to run from end of 2022 till end of 2027 and features 14 different partners from all over Europe, among others including: Wageningen Economic Research (NLD), Von Thuenen Institute (DEU), International Institure for Applied Systems Analysis (AUT), European Center for Agricultural, Regional and Environmental Policy Research (DEU) and Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Agroalimentaria de Aragón (ESP).

ForestNavigator Proposal Has Reached the Stage of Grant Agreement Preparation

Tue, 11 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Economic losses from soil erosion by water

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Soil isn’t the only thing that we are losing from erosion. A new study estimates $8 billion in global economic losses caused by soil erosion reducing crop yields and increasing water usage.

Climate change is making soil erosion worse. And certain countries are paying the price.

Under climate change, there are many more dry days interspersed by heavy rains. This leads to conditions where soil is more easily washed away during the strong rains. Land use change by humans exacerbates soil erosion by water, often by clearing out vegetation that help hold soil together. Steep surfaces (think hills) can also contribute to the problem.

Researchers from the European Union Joint Research Centre coupled two models, RUSLE and MAGNET, to estimate economic losses from soil erosion by water. They found that $8 billion is lost annually from global GDP. Worldwide, food production is reduced by 33.7 million tons of food. The study is unique in that the researchers were able to capture losses from structural economic change as a result of shifts in primary resources, like land quality. Previous studies simply calculated crop less and multiplied it by market values. Moreover, this study was the first to apply this method on a global scale.

Source: Forbes

MAGNET Analysis of Trade Agreements on EU Agri-Food

Tue, 26 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Today at the parliament (COMAGRI), Commissioner Wojciechowski will present a report that analyzes the impact of 12 Free Trade Agreements on EU agri-food, based on MAGNET analysis.

According to the new study, the EU trade agenda is set to have an overall positive impact on the EU economy and the agri-food sector. Trade agreements are due to result in substantial increases in EU agri-food exports, with more limited increases in imports, creating a positive trade balance overall. The study also confirms that the EU’s approach to grant a limited amount of lower duty imports (through tariff rate quotas) is the best approach in terms of protecting specific vulnerable agri-food sectors in the EU.

Source: JRC press release