The science of farmers' choices: Lessons on food security from agent-based models & Clarkson's Farm

With climate change and population growth putting immense pressure on food systems, ensuring sustainable food security is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Yet, government regulations designed to reshape farming practices often fail—not because they’re ill-intended, but because they clash with farmers' realities.

If you’ve watched Clarkson’s Farm, you’ve seen firsthand how government red tape makes farming more complicated than it needs to be. While the series sparked public debate, it hasn’t changed policies—but could it?

In this video, you’ll meet Aleid Teeuwen, a PhD researcher with a bold vision for making policies work. She argues that before we push for change, we need to understand why farmers do what they do. Enter Aspiration Adaptation Theory—the idea that people will always act in ways that make sense to them. If we want farmers to adopt new practices, policies must align with their own measures of success.

Aleid walks us through the challenges of turning Aspiration Adaptation Theory into an Agent-Based Model and explains how this approach can inform better policy-making. What would it take to reshape her model to make it applicable to Clarkson’s Farm? Aleid has the answer.

Whether you’re into behavioural science, food security, policy-making, psychology, hardcore modelling, or just a die-hard fan of Clarkson’s Farm, this video has something for you.