Patterns of agri-environmental scheme participation in Europe: Indicative trends from selected case studies (original) (raw)
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Farmers' participation in European agri-environmental policies
2002
This paper examines the factors influencing farmers' participation in several agri-environmental schemes. A multinominal logit model is used to separate between participating and nonparticipating farmers. In addition this model allows to predict farmers participation in one measure as well as in different measures simultaneously. Data stems from a survey conducted in eight European countries and includes a description of both farmer and farm characteristics. Three categories of schemes have been analysed: landscape maintenance, biodiversity protection and restriction of intensive farming practices. The combination of these three types of schemes provides eight possible packages which can be selected by eligible farmers. The multinominal logit model shows the importance of both farm and farmer as well as attitudinal characteristics on the participation in different combinations of schemes. For instance, the environmental concern favours landscape maintenance and biodiversity protection as well as their combinations with schemes requiring restrictions of intensive practices. However, it has a negative effect on the single participation in schemes requiring restrictions of intensive practices only. Our analysis confirms a number of previous findings. In addition, it shows the importance for policy makers to take into account that farmers have the opportunity to enter several schemes simultaneously. Indeed, due to cost complementarities, joint participation provides both private and public benefits.
Land Use Policy, 2021
The European Union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has failed to achieve its aim of preserving European farmland biodiversity, despite massive investment in subsidies to incentivise environmentally-beneficial farming practices. This failure calls into question the design of the subsidy schemes, which are intended to either function as a safety net and make farming profitable or compensate farmers for costs and loss of income while undertaking environmental management. In this study, we assess whether the design of environmental payments in the CAP reflects current knowledge about farmers' decision-making as found in the research literature. We do so on the basis of a comprehensive literature review on farmers' uptake of agri-environmental management practices over the past 10 years and interviews specifically focused on Ecological Focus Areas with policy-makers, advisors and farmers in seven European countries. We find that economic and structural factors are the most commonly-identified determinants of farmers' adoption of environmental management practices in the literature and in interviews. However, the literature suggests that these are complemented byand partially dependent ona broad range of social, attitudinal and other contextual factors that are not recognised in interview responses or, potentially, in policy design. The relatively simplistic conceptualisation of farmer behaviour that underlies some aspects of policy design may hamper the effectiveness of environmental payments in the CAP by over-emphasising economic considerations, potentially corroding farmer attitudes to policy and environmental objectives. We conclude that an urgent redesign of agricultural subsidies is needed to better align them with the economic, social and environmental factors affecting farmer decision-making in a complex production climate, and therefore to maximise potential environmental benefits.
The design of agri-environmental schemes: Farmers’ preferences in southern Spain
Land Use Policy, 2015
Agri-environmental schemes (AES) play a key role in promoting the production of environmental public goods by European Union agriculture. Although extensive literature has analyzed AES, some important issues remain understudied. This paper performs an ex-ante assessment of AES in permanent cropping, analyzing several issues that have received little attention from researchers, such as ecological focus areas (EFA) and collective participation. For this purpose, a choice experiment was used to assess farmers' preferences toward AES in a case study of olive groves in southern Spain. Results show high heterogeneity among farmers, with different classes being identified, from potential participants to non-participants. As regards EFA, almost half of the farmers would be willing to accept it for low monetary incentives (€8-9/ha per additional 1% of the farmland devoted to EFA) while the rest would do it for moderate-to-high monetary incentives (€41-151/ha per additional 1% of EFA). However, for a high share of EFA (e.g., 5-7%) higher incentives would presumably be required due to the intrinsic spatial restrictions of olive groves. With regard to collective participation, we find that it is unlikely that farmers would participate collectively with the incentive of the up-to-30% EU-wide bonus. These results are relevant for policy-making now when new AES are being designed for the next programming period 2014-2020.
Land Use Policy
The growing awareness of the negative impact of agriculture on the natural environment creates social expectation towards the reduction of this impact through the pro-environmental activities of farmers. Agrienvironmental programmes are one of the key instruments of EU agricultural policy aimed at encouraging farmers to do so. Due to their voluntary nature and involvement of farmers in these activities, there has been a scientific discussion for a long time on the factors determining the participation of farmers in these programmes. Numerous analyses carried out mainly for agriculture of Western European countries, do not give unequivocal answers on the factors which influence the involvement of farmers in agri-environmental measures, which additionally might be different for Central-Eastern Europe. This is a significant problem for policymakers deciding on the distribution of financial support. Our analysis of 594 commercial farms, a subsample of the Polish FADN (Farm Accountancy Data Network), uses both FADN data and the outcomes of interviews with farmers. Results show that farmers who see a clear economic interest for their farm, most often participate in AES (Agri-environmental Schemes). Risk aversion turned out also to be an important determinant but is rarely analysed in the literature. On the other hand, factors related to the attitudes of farmers towards the environment have a small impact (if any) on participation. This is important information for policymakers, as it indicates the educational needs in terms of farmers' understanding of the relationship between farming and the environment, and also indicates that moving away from the model of incentives based on financial incentives would probably involve a reduction in the scale of agri-environmental measures by farmers.
Understanding the participation in agri-environmental schemes: evidence from Tuscany Region
Agri-Environmental Schemes (AESs) represent one of the main agricultural policy instruments which address environmental objectives in Common Agricultural Policy. In spite of twenty years of application and its high share of RDP budget, several evaluation reports and scientific literature have assessed low environmental impacts compared with expectations. Economic literature has identified in low target level of schemes, low participation rates, spatial heterogeneity and asymmetric information between farmers and public administration the main reasons for low impact. The objective of the paper is to provide a comprehensive analysis of determinants of agri-environmental schemes adoption. The objective is pursued combining results of farm level adoption analysis with spatial analysis of the participation rate. Results show that both micro and meso-characteristics strongly affect participation to AESs. In fact, farm and household structure, quality of advice services and territory endog...
Agri-environmental schemes in the European Union: the role of ex ante costs
Ecosystems, 2008
The purpose of this paper is to analyse land allocation between competing agri-environmental contracts taking into account institutional issues and farm household and farm characteristics. We consider a Biodiversity Protection Contract, Landscape Management Contract and a Restriction on Intensive Practises Contract. The paper shows that it is important to study the choice for an agrienvironmental contract in combination with the