Agricultural Economics and Policy

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Bachelor’s and Master’s Theses

We are looking forward to supervise students for their Bachelor and Master theses. Please find proposals for Bachelor’s or Master’s Theses from our group in the lists below. Do not hesitate to contact us if you require any further information.

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ETH Zürich is using SiROP to publish scientific projects. With your university login you get free access to internships, scientific projects, Bachelor’s and Master’s theses. For more information please visit external page www.sirop.org.

Open Topics

 

For master theses, also bilateral agreements on thesis topics can be made. Please contact Prof. Dr. Robert Finger directly for further information (Email: ).

Note that we cannot take over the supervision of topics defined with third parties and that have not been discussed with us beforehand.  

 

 

 

Bachelor thesis: How much does it cost for EU dairy farmers to the reduce environmental pressures? - a literature review

Dairy production holds significant economic and social importance in Europe (European Commission 2020). However, the sector is a major contributor to environmental pressures, including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and ammonia emissions (European Commission 2024). Developing effective agri-environmental schemes to help farmers mitigate these pressures is therefore a key policy objective in many European countries. The success of such schemes often hinges on the level of compensation provided to farmers and the costs they incur to comply with the associated regulations. To address this, some studies have adopted production-based approaches using farm-level data to estimate the costs of mitigating environmental pressures, aiming to establish fair compensation for farmers participating in these schemes (e.g., Peerlings and Polman 2004; Mamardashvili et al. 2016; Dalheimer et al. 2024) However, there is a lack of comprehensive literature reviews examining whether certain environmental pressures have been prioritized over others when estimating these costs. Filling this gap could provide valuable insights for designing agri-environmental schemes that address environmental pressures in dairy farming more holistically. Read more 

Master thesis: Calculating the cost of biodiversity conservation at the Swiss dairy farms

Biodiversity is widely recognized as a critical challenge to agricultural production (Dainesem et al., 2019). This issue has been acknowledged by many European countries, leading to the implementation of specific policies and instruments, such as agri-environmental schemes aimed at reversing biodiversity decline (Pe’er et al., 2017). In Switzerland, two primary policy instruments address biodiversity conservation. The first is a set of cross-compliance requirements, known as the Proof of Ecological Performance, which mandates that farmers allocate a portion of their land to ecological focus areas (FOAG 2021). The second, which complements the first, involves action-based and result-based direct payments designed to preserve and enhance biodiversity (Huber et al. 2024). The success of such agri-environmental schemes often depends on the level of compensation provided to farmers and the costs of farms to comply with the regulations in agri-environmental schemes. Consequently, some studies use production-based approaches with farm-level data to approximate the cost of biodiversity conservation (e.g. Peerlings and Polman 2004; Gullstrand et al. 2014; Dalheimer et al. 2024). However, two significant gaps remain: 1) no study has calculated the cost of biodiversity conservation at the farm level using these approaches for Swiss dairy farms 2) no study has examined whether the choice of the farm level biodiversity measure can affect the magnitude of the estimated. Addressing both gaps can be very informative for the efforts of Swiss agricultural policy for designing effective biodiversity conservation schemes. Read more 

Master thesis: The effect of soil erosion risk on Swiss dairy production

Healthy soil is essential of agriculture and a key resource for meeting 21st-century human needs such as food, feed, fiber, clean water, and clean air (Amundson et al., 2015). However, soil degradation is a major problem for agriculture globally but also in Switzerland. Agriculture significantly contributes to soil degradation due to its reliance on resource-intensive practices, such as overgrazing (see Borrelli et al., 2017, and references therein). From a theoretical perspective, soil erosion can have a dual effect on agricultural production. On one hand, it degrades soil quality, reducing the effectiveness of land and other inputs, such as fertilizers, and subsequently lowering agricultural output. On the other hand, at higher levels of soil erosion, farmers may adopt advanced technologies that enable more efficient use of land and inputs, allowing them to adapt to ongoing erosion risks and potentially increasing agricultural output. Thus, the net effect of soil erosion on production depends on whether the negative impacts outweigh the positive adaptations or vice versa. The relevance of soil erosion and production also holds for dairy production in Switzerland, e.g. due to the relevance of on farm feed production. Despite its importance, there is a lack of farm-level studies examining the dynamics of soil erosion within the production structure of dairy farming. Addressing this gap could provide valuable policy insights for promoting sustainable farming practices to mitigate soil erosion. Read more 

Review of the state of agricultural insurances in dairy farming

Climate change is affecting agricultural production, lowering yields, increasing costs, increasing yield variability and thus causing financial losses for farmers (Webber et al., 2018). There are also negative implications for dairy production (e.g. Bucheli et al. 2022, Gisbert-Queral et al. 2021). Adopting suitable agricultural practices (e.g. cooling systems etc) is necessary for mitigating financial losses due to weather events (e.g. Vroege et al. 2023, Bucheli et al. 2022). Despite this, farmers may still experience financial losses due to weather conditions. In this regard, insurances are an essential complementary management practice for securing farmers’ viable income. Therefore, understanding the current state of the available agricultural insurance is essential for improving their effectiveness in compensating for farmers’ financial losses. Although the literature provides a though examination on the state of agricultural weather insurances offered in crop farming (e.g. Bucheli et al. 2023) and there are selected approaches documented in the literature (e.g. Deng et al. 2007), there is no overview research on and available insurances for heat and drought related damages in the dairy sector. Read more 

Master thesis: Crop protection in organic and non-organic pesticide-free arable farming

Pesticide-free (non-organic) crop production is currently gaining ground in European agriculture as a new alternative pathway between conventional and organic farming. To successfully produce crops without using pesticides, farmers must adopt sustainable crop protection measures, e.g., following the principles of integrated crop protection (IPM) or agroecological crop protection (ACP). Even though both production systems, i.e., pesticide-free non-organic and organic, work without pesticides, the alternative crop protection measures used may differ between organic and non-organic farms. To date, little is known about potential differences between farming systems without pesticides regarding the adoption of alternative crop protection strategies. Read more 

Economic impacts of heat stress in Swiss dairy production

The global increase in temperature and humidity amplifies local impacts on livestock husbandry. Climatic extreme events like heat waves negatively affect milk producers, especially because cows experiencing heat stress may imply lower milk and milk component yields in Switzerland. This thesis uses rich data from swissherdbook and MeteoSwiss and provides causal estimates of temperature humidity shocks on milk production using an econometric analysis. Based on this assessment, the thesis quantifies its economic relevance, considering both quantity and price effects. Knowledge about climate change impacts on milk production provides highly relevant information for farmers and other stakeholders in the agricultural sector. Read more 

Betriebliche Optimierungsmodelle in der Schweizer Landwirtschaft

Basierend auf Ihren Kenntnissen aus der Vorlesung «Optimierung landwirtschaftlicher Produktionssysteme» erstellen Sie ein Optimierungsmodell in Excel oder R und beantworten damit eine von Ihnen erarbeitete Forschungsfrage. Read more 

Review of plant diversity policy for grassland agriculture in Europe

Grasslands play an essential role in food production worldwide, covering a large portion of agricultural lands (FAO, 2021). Grasslands provide a variety of ecosystem services, including marketable ecosystem services (e.g., feed production) and non-marketable ecosystem services (e.g., biodiversity-related services). This means that they carry great policy importance (Huber et al., 2022). Like other sectors of agriculture, grassland-based systems are threatened by climate change and uncertain weather conditions, resulting in potentially lower and more variable incomes for farmers (Arora et al., 2020; Orlowsky et al., 2012). To cope with these new conditions, farmers can use various risk management instruments, such as financial insurance or different on-site management practices. Increasing plant diversity in grasslands is an important management practice that brings economic benefits to farmers through higher yields and lower risk (Baumgärtner, 2007; Finger & Buchmann, 2015), and public benefits through a positive effect on biodiversity-related ecosystem services (Isbell et al., 2011; Paul et al., 2020). This win-win effect of increasing plant diversity makes it an extremely important practice. However, in many countries single species grasslands are still the norm whereas it has been proven that a relatively small increase in diversity (e.g. four species) for intensive grasslands, increases the mean and decreases the variability of production (Schaub et al., 2020). Therefore, a review of the current state of the government support of plant diversity use in European grasslands is needed to understand what are the barriers to a more widespread adoption. Read more 

Analyse von Schweizer Agrarmärkten

Beschreibung und ökonomische Interpretation der Marktordnung eines Schweizer Agrarmarktes Read more 

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