A systemic comparative assessment of the multifunctional performance of alternative olive systems in Spain within an AHP-extended framework

The concept of sustainable agriculture is strongly related to the multifunctional role, either explicitly or implicitly, recognized to the primary sector. When assessing the performance and value to society of particular agricultural systems, the multifunctional nature of agriculture requires an approach based on multicriteria. Amongst others, these include economic, environmental, social, cultural and technical criteria. Like other complex multicriteria analyses, this evaluation of agricultural systems is characterized by the existence of not only many, but often conflicting criteria, multiple stakeholders and decision-makers who have competing interests, lack of information and a consideration of the high risks involved.The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a methodology that deals with problems of this sort in a relatively easy, flexible and economical manner. Therefore it is a potentially useful tool for the practical resolution of complex problems, often an object of Ecological Economics. One such problem is the analysis of the sustainability of economic activities.This article has three aims. The first is to present AHP as a powerful methodology for assessing multifunctional performances of different agricultural systems in a comparative way. AHP can also be applied to other multifunctional economic activities. The second aim is to propose an extension of AHP for improving the decision-making processes when different groups of decision agents are involved. A final aim is to illustrate the AHP-extended methodology in a particular case study. This is done by using it to compare the multifunctional performance of alternative olive growing systems in Andalusia, a region located in the south of Spain, on the basis of the assessments of different groups of experts. This tests the hypothetically greater sustainability of organic and integrated farming over conventional farming systems in the medium/long term under average conditions for this region. Results for this case study show a greater global performance of organic and integrated agriculture despite differences in the ideological tendencies of the experts, thus providing a scientific basis for endorsing institutional and social support for the promotion and implementation of these farming techniques. Some conflictive issues, however, have been detected, especially in areas related to environmental performance. Further research on the controversial topics is desirable for clarification.     

Public preferences for landscape features: The case of agricultural landscape in mountainous Mediterranean areas

Provision of landscape amenities produced by farmers, in addition to their economic function of producing food and fibre, has contributed to a reassessment of the role of agriculture in society. In this paper, we examine whether agricultural landscape provision really responds to a social demand as is argued by those in favour of multifunctionality. Thus, the aim of the present work is two-fold. First, we evaluate rural landscape preferences of citizens from a range of choices in the mountain area of the Alpujarras (south-eastern Spain), and second, we estimate their willingness to pay (WTP) to enjoy each of the landscape characteristics existing in the area. For the empirical analysis, based on a survey of public preferences due to the good public characteristics of landscape amenities, we applied two stated preference methods: Conjoint Analysis (CA) and Contingent Valuation (CV). Three landscape attributes were considered for this analysis: type of vegetation layer, density of rural buildings, and level of slope. Several levels were also considered for each attribute: abandoned fields, dryland farming, irrigated farming, and natural lands were included for the vegetation layer; three levels (low, intermediate and intense) were considered for the level of slope and three levels (none, little and intense) for rural buildings.     

Testing Choice Experiment for Benefit Transfer with Preference Heterogeneity

Benefit transfer is a cost-effective method for estimating the value of environmental goods that relies on information obtained in previous studies. The multiattribute approach of choice experiments should provide advantages in terms of benefit transfer, allowing differences in environmental improvements between sites as well as differences in socioeconomic and attitude characteristics between respondent populations. This article investigates the capability of choice experiment method to be used in environmental benefit transfer when a random parameters approach is used to allow for preference heterogeneity: we find that the inclusion of respondents' taste heterogeneity reduces the magnitude of the transfer error.