Internship in economics: Economic and environmental performance of labelled food

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INRAE presentation

The French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE) is a major player in research and innovation. It is a community of 12,000 people with 272 research, experimental research, and support units located in 18 regional centres throughout France. Internationally, INRAE is among the top research organisations in the agricultural and food sciences, plant and animal sciences, as well as in ecology and environmental science. It is the world’s leading research organisation specialising in agriculture, food and the environment. INRAE’s goal is to be a key player in the transitions necessary to address major global challenges. Faced with a growing world population, climate change, resource scarcity, and declining biodiversity, the Institute has a major role to play in building solutions and supporting the necessary acceleration of agricultural, food and environmental transitions.

The institute is among the world leaders in agricultural and food sciences, in plant and animal sciences, and is 11th in the world in ecology and environment. INRAE’s main goal is to be a key player in the transitions necessary to address major global challenges. In the face of the increase in population, climate change, scarcity of resources and decline in biodiversity, the institute develops solutions for multi-performance agriculture, high quality food and sustainable management of resources and ecosystems.

Work environment, missions and activities

You will be hosted by: the joint research unit CESAER (INRAE, Institut Agro and University of Bourgogne Franche-Comté), the Center for Economics and Sociology applied to Rural Areas, in Dijon. You will be supervised by Valentin Bellassen (INRAE, CESAER) and Sarah Huet (INRAE, CESAER).

More specifically, you will be in charge of the eco-design the technical specifications of food quality labels by selecting multi-performant farms among thousands of observed farms from FADN (Farm Accountancy Data Network) and technical diagnosis datasets and identifying their common features (e.g. mineral nitrogen inputs between 25 and 50 kgN ha-1, at least 80 meters of hedges per ha). Our large dataset on environmental impacts should allow to identify the minimal list of changes in technical specifications that would nudge farms towards the top 10% in environmental performance and assess their economic consequences. Parametric econometrics, stochastic frontier methods or machine learning (e.g. random forests) could be used to ensure that this identification is robust (keeping the levers identified by both methods). In each case, the effect of climate and soil on both economic and environmental performance should be controlled for.

Several possible tasks, to be prioritised in the first few weeks of the internship, have been pre-identified:

1. Bibliography on the theme (relationship between economic and environmental performance (of agricultural holdings) and possible methods to model and simulate farm performance;
2. Validate our environmental impact model, possibly by:
   1. Degrading information from thousands of technical diagnosis into FADN-like inputs which our model feeds on;
   2. Retrieving FADN data on the farms present in our technical diagnosis database and comparing the outputs of our model with the outputs of the technical diagnosis;
   3. Reconstructing economic performance on the technical diagnosis and validate this reconstruction with FADN data.
3. Model the economic and environmental performance of farms and identify 2-3 key changes in the technical specifications of food labels which could guarantee a substantially high environmental performance for a minimal decrease in economic performance.

THE PROFILE WE ARE LOOKING FOR

Recommended education: a license in economics, data sciences or environmental sciences is required, with a demonstrated ability to analyze databases using a programming language (R, Python, …).

Desired knowledge: interest in environmental economics or agricultural economics, especially in the design and assessment of public policies.

Experience preferred: experience in modeling environmental data and/or econometric skills are a plus (eg. “matching” methods in econometrics, predictive environmental models).

For more informations: internship_proposal_performance_labels.pdf - ownCloud

Deadline to apply: we will start processing the applications on 01/11/2025. Later applications are possible but the position may have already been filled.

Training and skills

INRAE's life quality

By joining our teams, you benefit from (depending on the type of contract and its duration):

- up to 30 days of annual leave + 15 days "Reduction of Working Time" (for a full time);
- parenting support: CESU childcare, leisure services;
- skills development systems: training, career advise;
- social support: advice and listening, social assistance and loans;
- holiday and leisure services: holiday vouchers, accommodation at preferential rates;
- sports and cultural activities;
- collective catering.

How to apply

I send my CV and my motivation letter