Understanding linkages between common agricultural policy and High Nature Value (HNV) farmland provision: an empirical analysis in Tuscany Region

Fabio Bartolini,Gianluca Brunori

doi:10.1186/s40100-014-0013-2

Abstract

The connection between agriculture and environment is a central topic to the agricultural policy agenda and it has been the core of policy reforms. These linkages have been strengthened by the 2003 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Reform that has introduced a set of environmental rules as a condition to receive Single Farm Payments (SFP). Consequently, the provision of environmental goods is addressed by both CAP pillars I and II, respectively, with cross-compliance belonging to pillar I while the second axis Rural Development Program (RDP) measures belong to the pillar II.The aim of this paper is to analyse the provision of environmental goods provided by agricultural activities and the impact the Common Agricultural Policy has on such provision. This aim is pursued firstly by quantifying an environmental quality indicator based on the concept of High Nature Value (HNV) farmland and, secondly by testing Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) techniques and spatial econometric models as means to identify provision determinants that improve causality in spatially non-stationary data. The analysis highlights the relevance of spatial models in improving the quality of the estimation, while model results show that rural development program measures and income support payments have opposite effects. Results confirm the relevance of productive factor use and entrepreneurship in explaining differences on environmental quality provision.

Highlights

The linkage between agriculture and the environment is central to the agricultural policy agenda (Bureau et al 2012)
The provision of environmental goods is addressed by both Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) pillars I and II, respectively, with cross-compliance belonging to pillar I while the second axis Rural Development Program (RDP) measures belong to the pillar II
The intensive agricultural areas located in the provinces of Pistoia, Massa and Florence, show a very low High Nature Value (HNV) performance, due to the prevailing agricultural system, which is based on floriculture and nursery production

Summary

Introduction

The linkage between agriculture and the environment is central to the agricultural policy agenda (Bureau et al 2012). Since the introduction of voluntary measures in Regulations 2078/92 and 2080/92, the protection of natural resources and the quality of the environment have been addressed in all agricultural policy reforms and form the core of the Rural Development Program (RDP) of the European Union These linkages were strengthened by the 2003 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Reform. A large body of literature deals with the agricultural policy impacts on the environment focusing on both ex-ante and ex-post policy analysis While the former mainly apply normative or positive mathematical programming models (Louhichi et al, 2010), in the latter environmental impacts are estimated using econometric or statistical models (see Buysse et al, 2007 for a review). These methods quantify the policy changes on the environment using environmental indicators that represent a proxy of impact on the environment (Primdahl et al, 2010; Chiron et al, 2013) or by developing bio-economic models that jointly simulate the agents in an analysis of the impact on the environment and on space (Louhichi et al, 2010)

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