Reconstructing the framing of resilience in the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy post‐2020 reform

Abstract

Abstract The concept of resilience has been increasingly adopted on the European Union's (EU) policy agenda as a principle for agro‐food policy‐making. However, resilience is an ambiguous concept, allowing for different understandings and uses in the context of agro‐food policy‐making. This study analyses whether and how resilience is framed and contributes to framing in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post‐2020 reform process by policymakers and stakeholders. Combining deductive and inductive coding, we analysed 123 policy documents of EU institutions and stakeholders related to the CAP post‐2020 reform debate and the associated Farm‐to‐Fork Strategy. Five distinct resilience frames were identified: (1) income resilience frame, (2) farmers’ supply chain position resilience frame, (3) climate change impact resilience frame, (4) disease resilience frame and (5) ecological resilience frame. Whereas the resilience concept has been deployed by various actors, they differ in their preferred policy actions towards greater resilience.