Abstract
This paper aims to explore the importance of the direct-payments scheme as a tool for supporting the sustainable development of agriculture in Poland, and to assess the effects of the 2015 Common Agricultural Policy reform in this context. In particular, the study attempts to investigate the impact of different fund-allocation criteria on the regional distribution of direct payments. The research employs a simulation method in the form of variant analysis (the “what if” model)—a mathematical method with elements of statistical description, based on the complete dataset. For the purposes of one of the variants, a multi-criteria composite indicator was constructed, including stimulants and destimulants of the level of environmental sustainability of agricultural plant production. The analysis was conducted at the NUTS 2 level (voivodeships). The timeframe of the study covered the period 2010–2019. The data published by Statistics Poland and the Agency for the Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture were used as the source material. The analysis indicated that the 2015 Common Agricultural Policy reform redistributed public funds away from sustainable agricultural management principles. Applying some basic sustainability criteria in order to internalise environmental externalities would lead to a radical redistribution of first-pillar Common Agricultural Policy payments. The paper concludes that a real greening of the European Union’s agricultural policy is a task still to be accomplished.
Highlights
The dynamic economic development in the second half of the 20th century was associated with a clear increase in prosperity in many developed countries, but it led to the “accelerated consumption” of natural resources, and the impoverishment of some populations, despite the rise in average incomes
In Poland, in the last year covered by the analysis, i.e., 2019, the relatively greater support given to smaller agricultural holdings, compared with large-scale holdings, resulted from the following elements in the direct-support scheme: (1)
The redistributive payment—granted in respect of the number of hectares used for agricultural purposes within the land forming part of the holding, falling within the range (3, 30] (Article 14 of [65]); the payment reduction mechanism—whereby the amount of the single-area payment made for a given year to a given beneficiary may not exceed EUR 150,000 (Article 19(1)
Summary
The dynamic economic development in the second half of the 20th century was associated with a clear increase in prosperity in many developed countries, but it led to the “accelerated consumption” of natural resources, and the impoverishment of some populations, despite the rise in average incomes. The concept of sustainable development was meant to provide a response to these problems [1]. This concept is especially important in the case of agriculture—a sector whose economic performance strongly depends on natural, climatic, and weather conditions. The signals which agricultural producers receive from the market (both from the supply side of the factor market and from the demand side of the agricultural-products market) seem to generally favour the processes of production specialisation and concentration. Sustainability 2021, 13, 13090 regards the factor market, production specialisation enables the generation of a higher return on investment, and a sufficiently large scale of production (concentration) determines the effectiveness of investment projects. As regards the agricultural-products market, the recipients of agricultural products usually expect large, uniform batches of goods
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