Farm choice between agri-environmental contracts in the European Union

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyse land allocation between competing agri-environmental contracts, taking into account institutional issues, the characteristics of the farm and farm household. Three types of agri-environmental contract are considered: a Biodiversity Protection Contract, a Landscape Management Contract and a Restriction on Intensive Practices Contract. The paper demonstrates that it is important to study the choices made between the different agri-environmental contracts. The reasons for this are that a unit of land can only be allocated to one contract (although the farm itself can choose to hold more than one contract) and the perceived relative marginal cost of a contract can change if the institutional setting, the farm household or the farm characteristics alter. The model uses a two-stage method. As a first stage, the probability of contract choice is determined. In the second stage these probabilities are linked to costs and the optimal contract choice is determined.agri-environmental contracts, contract choice,

What drives farmers’ participation in EU agri-environmental schemes?: Results from a qualitative meta-analysis

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Nudging farmers to enrol land into agri-environmental schemes: the role of a collective bonus

“…There is a growing theoretical and empirical economic literature on the reasons why farmers choose whether or not to sign an agri-environmental contract (Vanslembrouck et al, 2002;Peerlings and Polman, 2009;Christensen et al, 2011;Ma et al, 2012). This literature shows that farmers' decisions to join an AES are driven both by technical constraints and expected profit, but also highlights the role that behavioural factors can play in farmers' motivations.…”

A New Approach for Assessing Forms and Efficiency of Environmental Management

“…Thus, if the specific capital (knowledge, technology, equipment, funding, etc.) cannot be effectively organized within a single organization 13 , then effective external form(s) is to be used-e.g. joint ownership, interlinks, cooperative, joint investment in labels and origins, lobbying for public intervention, etc.…”

“…Consequently, the issues associated with the effective environmental management are among the most topical in public, political, business and academic debates around the globe [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16].…”