The decoupling of direct payments from production represents a substantial reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Farmers are no longer required to produce commodities to be entitled to support but only to keep land in Good Environmental and Agricultural Condition. If output declines as a result, there is concern that landscape services produced jointly with commodities will also decline. The aim of this paper is to assess the long-term effects of the 2003 reform on farm structure, landscape mosaic and biodiversity for a sample of EU regions. Impacts are quantified using a spatial agent-based modelling approach by simulating agricultural development with links to indicators of landscape value. Our results demonstrate that eliminating the link between support payments and production has possible negative consequences for the landscape, but only under particular circumstances. It is shown that these effects could be offset by strengthening (Pillar II) agri-environmental schemes. Further the single payment scheme results in higher land rental prices which reduces its ability to achieve its goal of providing income security for farmers. Implications of these results for the direction of continued CAP reform are discussed. Copyright (c) 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation (c) 2009 The Agricultural Economics Society.

This paper analyses farmland price formation under investors’ increased demand in the Czech Republic from 2008 to 2014. We adopt a stochastic metafrontier approach to hedonic price modelling and investigate the relative differences in farm and investor pricing. Our results provide evidence of buyer group-specific land valuations, asymmetric price dispersions and their temporal changes. These changes reflect the developments of market microstructures and market-supporting institutions induced by buyer competition. While initially significantly lower due to high market and bargaining power, prices paid by corporate/cooperative farms converged with high-level investor prices over time. Individual and family farms were largely unable to compete at the new price levels.

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Czech agricultural sector undertook many great changes in the last 12 years. These changes have resulted in the creation of business structure, which, however, is still not finished due to external (market) and internal (enterprise) conditions. The main goal within these changes was to create functional efficient and competitive agricultural sector, which is to survive in ever changing global world, in particular with respect to the intention to join the unified Europe. One of the questions, which is currently discussed very often, is to what extent the current business agricultural structure is efficient in input allocation, eventually which structural changes have to be undertaken to create such effective sector. The main objective of this contribution is therefore to present findings, which were obtained within the research project processing.Key words: efficiency, transaction costs, economy of scale, organization, business structure Abstrakt: Èeské zemìdìlství prolo v uplynulých 12 letech transformaèního období øadou zmìn, nìkdy a turbulentních. Tyto zmìny s sebou pøinesly vytvoøení urèité podnikatelské struktury, která vak dosud vzhledem k vnìjím (trním), ale i vnitøním (v rámci podnikù) podmínkám není koneèná. Na pozadí tìchto zmìn byl vdy poadavek vytvoøit fungující efektivní a konkurenceschopné zemìdìlství schopné pøeít v mìnícím se (globálním) prostøedí, pøedevím se zámìrem zaèlenit se do jednotné Evropy. Jednou z otázek, která je èasto skloòována v této souvislosti, se týká pøedevím skuteènosti, do jaké míry souèasná podnikatelská struktura agrárního sektoru je efektivní v alokaci vstupù, pøípadnì k jakým strukturálním zmìnám jetì musí dojít, aby takovýto sektor byl vytvoøen. Cílem tohoto pøíspìvku je tedy pøispìt do této diskuse zjitì-nými výsledky, které byly dosaeny v rámci øeeného výzkumného projektu.

This paper addresses <i>(ex ante)</i> the issue of the potential impact of the modulation of direct payments on a sector and regional scale in the Czech Republic. The ultimate version of the compulsory modulation measure adopted under the Health Check of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) assumes the reduction of direct payments if the total individual claim exceeds 5 thousand € or 300 thousand € level. The Czech agricultural sector will be impacted by this measure substantially, given the large scale farming enterprises. In 2013, the total farmers’ direct payments will be cut by more than 10% (€ 91 million). Moreover, there are regional differences in farm structures (the average farm size and the extent of collectivization) which will bring about various effects of policies in the heterogeneous regions. The analysis further shows that the regions that are least affected are at the same time more environmental sensitive and are mostly situated in the mountainous or sub-mountainous parts of the country or more urban areas than the average. Hence the effect of the modulation, from a purely environmental perspective, may not contradict the objectives of other environmental policies. That is to say the regions that need support the most will be reduced the least. However, the picture is less obvious in the regional economies where more rural regions (potentially more vulnerable with socio-economic problems) tend to be more affected.