Institute of Agricultural and Forestry Economics (AFO)

We combine basic and applied research, quantitative and qualitative methods, while building on a strong involvement of stakeholders in our research process. This makes our research relevant not only to the scientific community, but also to farmers and forest enterprise managers, policy makers and other key stakeholders in the agricultural and forestry sector.

In agricultural economics, our work focuses on...

In the field of agricultural economics, our research foci include:
(i) developing and evaluating concepts for sustainable production of agricultural (public) goods with a focus on the balance between ecology, economy and social aspects,
(ii) farm level assessment of broader changes (e.g., climate change, biodiversity loss, policies, crises, changes in diet);
(iii) appraisal of new technologies in terms of feasibility/added value for the agricultural sector;
(iv) theoretical developments towards a process-relational approach to farming resilience.

Particularly through our European research projects, we established two international strategic research clusters. The first focuses on the valorisation of public good and ecosystem service provision by agriculture (EU projects CLAIM, PROVIDE, CONSOLE) and the second on interdisciplinary (economics, natural sciences, engineering) research on agriculture and the environment, particularly with respect to agroecology (EU projects SHOWCASE, LIFT, D4AgEcol).

In forestry economics, we focus on:

In the field of forestry economics, research focuses on analysing the economic performance of larger forest enterprises and small-scale farm holdings. The long-term, transdisciplinary research (since the 1960s!) is based on two highly developed forest accountancy data networks, in which we claim almost unique expertise. These networks are a most valuable research infrastructure and serve as interfaces to practice and policy alike.

In particular, we focus on:

• Efficiency analysis of forest enterprises and forest related processes
• Development of management tools for forest enterprises
• Forestry in the context of national accounting
• Monitoring of profitability of forestry in Austria by means of forest accountancy networks
• Valuation of forest services in terms of welfare economics
• Marketing of non-wood goods and forest services