Public preferences for post 2020 agri-environmental policy in the Czech Republic: A choice experiment approach

In November 2017 European Union commission presented a communication report summarizing the reform proposal of the post 2020 Common Agriculture Policy (CAP). The reform aims to address the environmental degradation associated with agricultural production as well as change in the structure of CAP payments. To this end, the Ministry of Agriculture in Czech Republic is preparing to set its priorities towards CAP’s reform. In this study we applied a choice experiment to investigate the public preferences for a set of environmental goods and services delivered by agri-environment-climatic voluntary measures (AECMs). A mixed logit model is employed to elicit preferences and explore their heterogeneity. We find that respondents oppose strongly funding removal. Among environmental attributes, water and food quality are the ones with the highest implicit marginal willingness-to-pay values. Preferences for no funding option are heterogeneous with socio-demographic and attitudinal variables explaining some sources of this heterogeneity. A continuation of national funding for the AECMs is expected to lead to a better state of environment with an anticipated positive welfare change of 669–932 mil EUR as opposed to funding removal. The change reflects the estimated welfare change resulting from moving from a low to a medium or to a high preservation state of agri-environmental attributes. We also project the budget change for AECMs considering the level of national funding and given the transfer share between Pillar I and II. Based on our results, we suggest that national funding can be informed by the welfare change scenarios and transfer shares are projected accordingly.     

A spatial analysis of land-use change and agriculture in eastern Canada

Publicly available statistics regarding rural demographics, rural society and land use are presented and analysed using Geographic Information System (GIS). Our aim was to provide a quantitative basis for discussion of rural policy issues such as urban encroachment. Productivity (tonnage) of crop agriculture has increased by about 230% over 40 years while that of livestock (expressed as livestock units) has remained constant. Agricultural consolidation and intensification seen in southern Ontario has not translated into economic sustainability where on-farm income declined from 1991 to 2000. However, on-farm income in southern Quebec and municipalities adjacent to Toronto increased, perhaps due to the niche markets created in these regions. The increases in agricultural activity throughout southern Ontario have occurred in regions that have been designated as sites for innovation clusters, thus providing a foundation of resources for bio-based industries to expand and innovate. Reflecting on trends of demographics and production systems we conclude that rural policy should orient its geographical delineation to regional and inter-provincial scales. Our analysis indicates that rural populations and communities are sustainable but agricultural enterprises have changed radically; they have maintained or increased productivity but lost profitability. Applying a rural landscape design to the entire region would help address the sustainability of agriculture and rural communities.     

Similarities and dissimilarities between the EU agricultural and rural development model and Romanian agriculture. Challenges and perspectives

The main aims of this study are to highlight the differences and the similarities between the European model of agricultural and rural development, and the state of play in the Romanian agricultural sector. Statistically speaking, the agricultural sector's indicators of the past two decades place Romania outside the family picture of the EU countries, with very slight resemblances, and very strong discrepancies between their economic, technical, and institutional characteristics. At present, competition-wise, farming and farmers in Romania are still strongly disfavoured in relation to their competitors in the old EU Member States. In Romania, the economic and institutional mechanisms have most often been devised to the disadvantage of agricultural production, by claiming that subsistence farming would be the sustainable way, and by channelling the added value to other sectors. An option to continue the agricultural policies of the past decades and to abandon the national support lent to agriculture would be particularly risky through its unpredictable and incalculable social and economic effects.     

Quantifying the impact of farmers' social networks on the effectiveness of climate change mitigation policies in agriculture

To reduce agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, farmers need to change current farming practices. However, farmers' climate change mitigation behaviour and particularly the role of social and individual characteristics remains poorly understood. Using an agent-based modelling approach, we investigate how knowledge exchange within farmers' social networks affects the adoption of mitigation measures and the effectiveness of a payment per ton of GHG emissions abated. Our simulations are based on census, survey and interview data for 49 Swiss dairy and cattle farms to simulate the effect of social networks on overall GHG reduction and marginal abatement costs. We find that considering social networks increases overall reduction of GHG emissions by 45% at a given payment of 120 Swiss Francs (CHF) per ton of reduced GHG emissions. The per ton payment would have to increase by 380 CHF (i.e., 500 CHF/tCO₂eq) to reach the same overall GHG reduction level without any social network effects. Moreover, marginal abatement costs for emissions are lower when farmers exchange relevant knowledge through social networks. The effectiveness of policy incentives aiming at agricultural climate change mitigation can hence be improved by simultaneously supporting knowledge exchange and opportunities of social learning in farming communities.     

Potential hazards of land policy: Conservation,rural development and fire use in the Brazilian Amazon

With growing awareness of fire hazard as an environmental threat within tropical rainforests, the state of Brazil initiated a set of fire control policies aimed at monitoring and ameliorating fire hazard in the Amazon region. These policies were developed in the aftermath of large-scale fire events and reflect a conservationist discourse that responded to internal as well as international environmental concerns. In doing so, the policies have framed the “fire problem” around those who use fire in their land use practices, in particular small-scale agriculturalists. Yet, land policy in general has repeatedly failed to address the institutional arrangements which compel small-scale farmers to use fire in their agricultural practices and the underlying development processes that have made the landscape more vulnerable to accidental spread of fire. Using regional level data on small-scale farmers, I suggest that the conservation oriented approach of fire policy may not be enough to curtail accidental fire events and instead that the fire issue needs to be positioned within rural development as well.     

Eliciting citizen preferences for multifunctional agriculture in the watershed areas of northern Thailand through choice experiment and latent class models

Multifunctional agriculture is increasingly discussed as an alternative to conventional, mono-functional farming and its negative environmental impacts. This study aims at determining Thai society’s demand for agri-environmental services offered by a multifunctional agricultural system using two models, i.e. a Choice Experiment Model and a Latent Class Choice Model. The Choice Experiment Model (CEM) is employed to assess citizens’ willingness to pay for various attributes of multifunctional outputs. Extending from the CEM, the heterogeneity of citizens’ preferences across environmental attitudes and knowledge is captured through the Latent Class Choice Model (LCCM). Survey data was obtained from structured interviews with 373 respondents in the country’s two largest cities, namely Bangkok and Chiang Mai. The results of the CEM suggest that urban Thai citizens are willing to pay for changes toward multifunctional agriculture, as expressed in an increase of their monthly food expenses. Among the attributes of agri-environmental practices, “organic agriculture in combination with agro-biodiversity conservation” garnered the highest preference, followed by “organic farming as single practice” and “Good Agricultural Practice combined with agro-biodiversity conservation”. Income, gender, agri-environmental knowledge and environment-conscious attitude are important factors determining urban citizens’ support of multifunctionality. Findings of the LCCM revealed a strong heterogeneity in attribute valuation across three different classes of respondents, suggesting that policy-makers need to be aware of diverse preference patterns among Thai citizens with regard to specific attributes of multifunctional agriculture. We further conclude that enhancing environmental literacy and consciousness is a key determinant in gaining citizens’ support for multifunctional agriculture.     

Crop genetic diversity, farm productivity and the management of environmental risk in rainfed agriculture

This paper presents an assessment of the linkages between cropgenetic diversity, farm productivity and risk management. Aflexible moment-based approach is used to analyse the impactof crop genetic diversity on the mean, variance and skewnessof yield. Using farm-level data from Sicily (Italy), econometricevidence shows how crop genetic diversity can increase farmproductivity and reduce risk exposure. The empirical resultsindicate that crop genetic diversity can reduce variance, butonly if pesticide use is low. Furthermore, high diversity levelscan reduce downside risk exposure (e.g. the risk of crop failure).This provides useful insights on the linkages between resilienceand crop genetic diversity.     

Commonage land and farmer uptake of the rural environment protection scheme in Ireland

This paper looks at some of the factors which may influence REPS participation among commonage farmers in the west of The Republic of Ireland and on the impact REPS has had on participating farmers’ income and on their environmental practices and attitudes. Commonage is land held in common ownership on which two or more farmers have grazing rights. There are about 4500 commonages in Ireland and they are important to Irish agriculture, to conservation of the uplands, in managing the environment and in sustaining rural livelihoods. The study reveals that sheep farmers are less likely to join REPS than cattle farmers and that being in receipt of other sources of State income acted as a deterrent to participation. REPS appears to have had a positive impact on participants’ income and seems to have been successful in changing farmer practices in a more environmentally benign direction, when doing so imposed no additional costs on the farmer. Environmental awareness among all farmers appears to be poor although REPS farmers display more appreciation of the degraded state of commonage than do non-REPS farmers. Farmers preference for a continuation of the status quo with respect to commonage management and a lack of discontent with respect to the distribution of past commonage rights points to the potential of building on a more co-operative approach to environmental management.     

The Impact of Pillar II Funding: Validation from a Modelling and Evaluation Perspective

We extend the Common Agricultural Policy Regionalised Impact Modelling System (CAPRI) with a regional computational general equilibrium (CGE) model to estimate the effects of the Pillar II of the Common Agricultural Policy. Our aim is to assess the modeling approach by comparing the scenario results with observations from the evaluation reports for rural development, supplemented with expert interviews and findings from the literature. For this purpose, an ex‐post scenario is developed for Germany that models the effect of the Pillar II measures in 2006. We observe a moderate impact, namely, an increase in agricultural income (5%) and agricultural land use (0.15%), particularly grassland, and a substitution of arable land with grassland. This effect leads to a total increase in agricultural production, particularly of beef, and to an increase in total greenhouse gas emissions and total nitrogen surplus for Germany. Greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient surpluses per ha, however, are reduced. We observe that farm investment programmes displace private investment. The evaluation reports confirm the moderate impact and our major results, as does the comparison with other literature. However, the conclusions about agri‐environment measures and their impact on income differ. The most important difference between our results and the evaluation reports and majority of the present literature is that we also quantify the joint effect between the whole economy and policy measures, with some contradictory effects.     

Multifunctionality of agriculture: an inquiry into the complementarity between landscape preservation and food security

Without support, the levels of agricultural public goods suchas food security and landscape preservation would fall shortof demand in high-cost countries. However, as demonstrated byNorway as a case study, the current level of support is disproportionatefrom a public goods perspective, and the policy instrumentsare badly targeted at the public goods in question. Becauseagricultural land is a major component of both food securityand landscape preservation, giving rise to a high degree ofcost complementarity between the public goods, it would be moreefficient to support land-extensive production techniques thanproduction per se.     

Community-based rural residential land consolidation and allocation can help to revitalize hollowed villages in traditional agricultural areas of China: Evidence from Dancheng County,Henan Province

The accelerated rural hollowing driven by vast and increasing out-migration of rural labors under urban–rural dual-track system has imposed huge obstacles on improving land use efficiency and coordinating urban–rural development in China. Taking Dancheng County in Henan Province as an example, this paper analyzes the status quo of rural hollowing and discusses two typical rural residential land consolidation and allocation (RRLCA) practices in traditional agricultural areas (TAAs) of China. The results show that, Dancheng experienced rapid rural hollowing characterized as the hollowing of rural industries, infrastructure, and residential population and settlements. However, Dancheng has considerable potential and the necessity of RRLCA, for the model-based estimation shows that the potential of increasing farmland by carrying out RRLCA was about 5649 ha. The two community-based RRLCA practices show positive effects on the improvement of local living conditions, increment of farmland area and development of rural industries. Their experiences, including self-organized rural planning, democratic decision-making, and endogenous institutional innovation may benefit future RRLCA. Overall, it indicates that promoting community-based RRLCA scientifically according to local conditions could provide an integrated platform for increasing farmland area, developing modern agriculture, promoting new countryside construction, and thus revitalize hollowed villages. On considering the limitations and obstacles of current initiatives, suggestions for future RRLCA in rural China have been put forward.     

Valuing financial,health, and environmental benefits of Bt cotton in Pakistan

Data from a farm survey and choice experiment are used to value the benefits of Bt cotton in Pakistan. Unlike previous research on the economic impacts of Bt, which mostly concentrated on financial benefits in terms of gross margins, we also quantify and monetize health and environmental benefits associated with technology adoption. Due to lower chemical pesticide use on Bt cotton plots, there are significant health advantages in terms of fewer incidents of acute pesticide poisoning, and environmental advantages in terms of higher farmland biodiversity and lower soil and groundwater contamination. Farmers themselves value these positive effects at US$ 79 per acre, of which half is attributable to health and the other half to environmental improvements. Adding average gross margin gains of US$ 204 results in aggregate benefits of US$ 283 per acre, or US$ 1.8 billion for the total Bt cotton area in Pakistan.     

Replacement of Agricultural Price Supports by Area Payments in the European Union and the Effects on Pesticide Use

This article determines the contribution of recent European Union agricultural policy reforms on the use of pesticides. Our theoretical model extends the multioutput generalization of the Lichtenberg–Zilberman damage control technology model developed by Chambers and Lichtenberg . Our empirical analysis uses farm-level data for a sample of French farms. Results suggest that price effects on the use of pesticides are always more elastic than area payment effects. This indicates that policy reforms consisting of a reduction in price supports in favor of area payments, may reduce application of crop protection inputs. Such policy changes, which represent a certain degree of decoupling, took place under the 1992 Common Agricultural Policy reforms.     

The environmental,social and economic effects of recent technological changes in sugarcane on the State of São Paulo,Brazil

From 2007 to 2017, the Agro‐Environmental Protocol of the Sugar and Energy Sector was in force, an agreement between sugarcane mill owners and the State Government of São Paulo, Brazil, proposing to eliminate sugarcane burning as a method to facilitate the harvest. Simultaneously, the sugarcane harvest was becoming widely mechanized while, under the interests of capital accumulation, the mills were entering the information and communication technology era and providing the agricultural processes with more precise and immediate management and technological controls, similar to those implemented in the mills' administrative and industrial operations in the 1990s. Short‐term factors, including environmental factors, favoured sugarcane technological changes. As a result, there was a mass layoff of rural workers and an increasing number of people/workers in agricultural mechanization, transportation and maintenance of machinery and administrative as well. The whole process highlighted the differences between mills, resulting in small and medium sugarcane farmers and mills to become the most impacted, in operational and financial terms, by the accelerating mechanization of the sugarcane industry as a whole.     

Rural development and the role of game farming in the Eastern Cape,South Africa

The analysis of game farming is set in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Game farming reorders the use, meaning and value of land and animal species. However, what it means for rural development processes in the immediate region and beyond is not well accounted for. We perceive game farming as an assemblage that brings together new actors, new forms of land use and new discourses. We argue that although game farming has generated new opportunities and new forms of added value to the available resources (e.g. eco-tourism, trophy hunting, game-meat production), situated in the history and contemporary context of the Eastern Cape, it is a contested, and from a development point of view, problematic land-use practice. We argue that game farming constrains land and agrarian reforms: the distribution of land and income remains skewed; ‘poaching’ occurs and game farms do not, or only minimally, generate new and badly needed employment opportunities. The game farm has emerged as an exclusive, globally well-connected space. The nature of the relationships this space maintains with the surrounding communities is, however, such that the overall contribution to rural development in South Africa is questionable.     

Opportunities and pitfalls for researchers to contribute to the design of evidence-based agricultural policies: lessons from Uganda

Agricultural policies in sub-Saharan Africa have paid insufficient attention to sustainable intensification. In Uganda, agricultural productivity has stagnated with aggregate increases in crop production being attributed to expansion of cultivated land area. To enhance sustainable crop intensification, the Ugandan Government collaborated with stakeholders to develop agricultural policies using an evidence-based approach. Previously, evidence-based decision-making tended to focus on the evidence base rather than evidence and its interactions within the broader policy context. We identify opportunities and pitfalls to strengthen science engagement in agricultural policy design by analysing the types of evidence required, and how it was shared and used during policy development. Qualitative tools captured stakeholders' perspectives of agricultural policies and their status in the policy cycle. Subsequent multi-level studies identified crop growth constraints and quantified yield gaps which were used to compute the economic analyses of policy options that subsequently contributed to sub-national program planning. The study identified a need to generate relevant evidence within a short time 'window' to influence policy design, power influence by different stakeholders and quality of stakeholder interaction. Opportunities for evidence integration surfaced at random phases of policy development due to researchers’ ’embededness’ within co-management and coordination structures.     

International diffusion of gains from biotechnology and the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy

This paper analyses the impact of adopting or rejecting genetically modified (GM) crops in the European Union, taking into account the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In this paper the productivity impact of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) differs across crops, taking factor biased technology change into account. The transfer of knowledge across countries is modelled as a process of endogenous knowledge spill-overs. Analysis with a multi-region applied general equilibrium model shows that the CAP protects farm income and production despite non-adoption of the more productive GM crops in the EU. The EU will forgo substantial benefits in terms of economic welfare if it bans GM imports.     

The relationship between public transport and the progressive development of rural areas

In a consequence of the economic transformation, transport companies compete for the most profitable lines of public transport whereas the wide countryside remains of a little interest. As a solution, integrated systems of public transport could play an important role in the development of rural areas, especially in post-communist countries. Such a system in the South Moravian Region connects 24 state, municipal and private transport companies in a unified mode. It includes unified tariff, operation management from one place, and creation of a skeleton of high capacity (train) lines with transfer traffic nodes, creation of nodes on the city fringe for the change from buses to electric vehicles and release of capabilities for tangential lines. The system competes mainly with the individual car transport by its increasing comfort and extension of services. The annual performances have increased from 118 to 829 million of passengers-kilometers in the regional transport and from 344 to 396 million passengers in the city during the period 2004–2015. The relation between accessibility and rural development, particularly depopulation trends, was investigated. It was found that the frequency of connections is sufficient throughout the territory, which is one of main reasons inhabitants should remain in the countryside. Moreover, this frequency contributes positively to rural tourism, prevents social exclusion and stimulates progressive rural development throughout the whole territory.     

From goodwill to good deals: FELDA land resettlement scheme and the ascendancy of the landless poor in Malaysia

Land resettlement schemes are commonly used in the developing countries to leverage poor people’s access to land for shelter, food production, or boosting rural development. Unfortunately, not many resettlement schemes have effectively solved the problems they were designed to tackle. For researchers and policymakers in particular, part of the problem has been the lack of enabling analytical tools for holistic and an in-depth analysis of the trajectories of the few successful models of land resettlement schemes. The current study examines the features of one of the most successful land resettlement initiatives, namely the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) scheme in Malaysia. Established in 1956, the scheme comprises over 400 settler communities that cover about 16% of Malaysia’s total land area. The FELDA scheme has tremendously transformed the lives of the landless population through provision of shelter, jobs, income from agribusiness shareholding, and ownership of highly valorised land titles. This study combined the path dependency approach and Earth system governance analytic tools to examine the trajectories and multidimensional features that make the FELDA scheme a good example to reckon with. Thus, broadening researchers and policymakers appreciation of the role of analytical dimensions is a major contribution of this study to the current debates on the pro-poor land governance strategies in the Global South. Finally, the study shines some light at the role of land governance in streamlining land development and goals of sustainable national planning.     

A response to Doole and Marsh () article: methodological limitations in the evaluation of policies to reduce nitrate leaching from New Zealand agriculture

A recent paper by Doole and Marsh (2013), questioned the validity of using the New Zealand Forest and Agriculture Regional Model (NZFARM) for New Zealand agri‐environmental policy analysis. We respond to their critique by clearly describing the model structure, explaining the NZFARM parameterisation, calibration, and validation procedure, and presenting estimates from a series of nutrient reduction policy scenarios to highlight the utility of the model. In doing so, we demonstrate that NZFARM generates logical and intuitive results that can be used for robust agri‐environmental policy decision‐making.