European Union Common Agricultural Policy Research Articles

Machine Learning Predictive Modeling of Agricultural Sustainability Indicators

<p>Modern-day researchers are provided with data abundance that has its drawback: increased analysis complexity. Approaching this issue through traditional data analysis techniques provides only partial solutions to the complex situation. This research offers analytical and predictive models based on machine‐learning algorithms (linear regression, random forest, and generalized additive model) that can be used to assess and improve the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) impact over agricultural sustainability in European Union (EU) countries, providing the identification of proper instruments that can be adopted by EU policymakers and CAP Council in financial management of the policy. The chosen methodology elaborates custom‐developed models based on a dataset containing 22 relevant indicators, considering three main dimensions contributing to the EU sustainable agriculture development goals in the CAP context: social, environment, and economic. The results showed that sustainable agriculture parameters influenced by the relevant indicators could be modeled with both linear and non-linear regression approaches by utilization of real-time data using machine learning. The predictive analytic models provide satisfactory performance and could be adopted by researchers and practitioners as policy impact monitoring and controlling tools, not only the EU but also for other countries that have or plan to adopt similar agricultural policies.</p><p><strong>Keywords: </strong>Agricultural policies, common agricultural policy, machine learning, rural development, sustainable agriculture</p>

Innovative contract solutions for the AECPGs provision: Which features meet the farmers’ approval? Insights from Emilia-Romagna (Italy)

The agroecological transition promoted worldwide is supported by the European Union Common Agricultural Policy towards different strategies and policy tools. The agri-environmental schemes, offering farmers the possibility to adopt environment-friendly practices (thus mitigating negative externalities/providing positive ones) represent a straightforward example. However, there is dissatisfaction about their effectiveness and efficiency, while their improvement is envisaged through a flexible mix of new instruments: novel contract solutions fostering result-based payments, collective implementation, involving value chains and land tenure systems coupled to environmental conditionality. This paper investigates how farmers from Emilia-Romagna (Italy) perceive these innovative contract solutions as “easy to understand”, “applicable”, “economic beneficial”, and their willingness to enrol. The applied ordered logistic regression models include socio-demographic characteristics, structural features of the holdings, and the farmers’ preference(s) for 13 individual contract features. Farmers’ perceptions are driven by the previous experience acquired from similar measures, key socio-demographic characteristic/holding structural features, and peculiar contractual elements.

The Impact of Subsidies on Persistent and Transient Technical Inefficiency: Evidence from Polish Dairy Farms

AbstractWe investigate the impact of five types of subsidies granted under the European Union Common Agricultural Policy on the persistent and transient inefficiency of Polish dairy farms. Our research shows that coupled and environmental subsidies reduce transient technical inefficiency, while the opposite is true for Less Favoured Areas (LFA) and other rural subsidies. Simultaneously, environmental, LFA, and other rural subsidies increase persistent technical inefficiency. These results imply that the impact of each type of subsidy on technical efficiency can be different and that the effect of the particular type of subsidy can vary between transient and persistent technical inefficiency.

Europe’s Large-Scale Land Acquisitions and Bibliometric Analysis

The agricultural sector in the European Union is largely characterized by a declining number of farms and an increasing size of surviving farms. The land is concentrating under the usage of fewer large agricultural producers. Meanwhile, a broad distribution of land ownership is the basis for the welfare of local economies and rural communities. Land distribution is one important component that guarantees our right to food, human rights, and sustainability in agriculture. The aim of this paper was to compile a systematic review of the existing literature on large-scale land acquisitions in Europe. The results are based on two different search methods. Firstly, documents and articles on large-scale land acquisitions were studied and, secondly, keyword research from the SCOPUS database and analysis using VOSviewer where performed. This study shows that large-scale land acquisitions are closely related to food security, human rights, global governance and international law, land tenure, biofuel production, and financialization through European Union common agricultural policy subsidies and foreign direct investments.

The role of local communities in the development of European Union rural areas

The purpose of this article is to present the results of the research on the role of local action groups (LAG) in the development of rural areas in the member states of the European Union (EU). The most important postulate of the investigation is the scientifi cally grounded and practice-tested statement that only by relying on rural communities it is possible to objectively determine the pressing problems that need to be solved within the boundaries of various rural areas. Moreover, with the help of rural population (especially its active part, youth, entrepreneurs, farmers) it is advisable to implement the social, economic, environmental projects developed there, in the positive results of which both rural residents and the state are interested. The scientific work uses analytical and review methods of analysis (including the discourse method), which (together with the widespread use of modern statistical information, reporting materials of the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), the content of the relevant legislation) made it possible to formulate a number of practice-oriented conclusions. Most of them relate to the possibilities of European rural communities (institutionalized in a certain way) to solve such problems of the countryside as rising unemployment, limited fi nancing for rural development, reduced public investment in the development of rural areas, sequestration of state spending on the development of the social sphere within the boundaries of rural areas, poverty and social insulation. In general, the European experience of encouraging local participation in achieving the goals and priorities of rural development put forward by society through the support of the LEADER / CLLD initiatives under the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) not only has many positive consequences, but also includes time-tested practices, worthy of implementation in the modern conditions of the domestic environment.

The role of local communities in the development of European Union rural areas

The purpose of this article is to present the results of the research on the role of local action groups (LAG) in the development of rural areas in the member states of the European Union (EU). The most important postulate of the investigation is the scientifi cally grounded and practice-tested statement that only by relying on rural communities it is possible to objectively determine the pressing problems that need to be solved within the boundaries of various rural areas. Moreover, with the help of rural population (especially its active part, youth, entrepreneurs, farmers) it is advisable to implement the social, economic, environmental projects developed there, in the positive results of which both rural residents and the state are interested. The scientific work uses analytical and review methods of analysis (including the discourse method), which (together with the widespread use of modern statistical information, reporting materials of the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), the content of the relevant legislation) made it possible to formulate a number of practice-oriented conclusions. Most of them relate to the possibilities of European rural communities (institutionalized in a certain way) to solve such problems of the countryside as rising unemployment, limited fi nancing for rural development, reduced public investment in the development of rural areas, sequestration of state spending on the development of the social sphere within the boundaries of rural areas, poverty and social insulation. In general, the European experience of encouraging local participation in achieving the goals and priorities of rural development put forward by society through the support of the LEADER / CLLD initiatives under the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) not only has many positive consequences, but also includes time-tested practices, worthy of implementation in the modern conditions of the domestic environment.

Assessment of agri-environmental situation in selected EU countries: a multi-criteria decision-making approach for sustainable agricultural development

In recent years, humanity has faced with multiple crises, both of economic and environmental nature. Among the key reasons for such turbulences, the deteriorating agri-environmental situation appears as an important facet. This article evaluates agri-environmental situation of selected European Union (EU) countries using the multi-criteria decision making methods (SAW, TOPSIS, and EDAS) to identify the potential strategies for improvement of agricultural activities and environmental situation in general. The set of indicators, compiled from the database, prepared by the European Commission (EC) was used for this research. The empirical results show that the trends in agri-environmental situation of selected EU countries are similar under all the methods used. The best agri-environmental situation both at the beginning and at the end of the research period was in Finland, Ireland, and Sweden. On contrary, the worst situation was identified in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany. The only case of decline in the agri-environmental performance is observed for Lithuania, whereas ascension in ranks is observed for Austria and Poland. The results are of particular importance in the period of development of agri-environment and climate schemes for the European Union Common Agricultural Policy post-2020.

How changes in cropping intensity affect water usage in an irrigated Mediterranean catchment

Agricultural policies and social change influence irrigation management decisions and their associated effects. The changes in the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union have deeply affected irrigated agriculture in the Mediterranean region. In this region, hydrology is rather complex and the environment particularly vulnerable. We monitored cropping patterns and the water balance in a sprinkler-irrigated catchment in Central Portugal over thirteen irrigation seasons and twelve rainfall seasons. There was wide variation in annual rainfall (from 283 mm to 667 mm) and in the intensity of rainfall events from year to year. A monitoring station at the catchment outlet was installed to measure runoff which, together with field observations, allowed us to compute a water balance for both the rainfed and the irrigation seasons. Changes in cropping intensity led to changes in the depth of irrigation. Irrigation runoff followed irrigation depth and both followed the trend of cropping intensity. Less intensive cropping also reduced the off-site effects of agricultural activities. The runoff coefficient was 0.28 in the rainfed seasons and 0.02 in the irrigation seasons. The changes in the irrigation hydrology and in the off-site effects of agricultural activities in the catchment were caused by changes in cropping intensity induced by the European Union Common Agricultural Policy reforms, rather than by environmental or technical factors.

Spatial Scale Mismatches in the EU Agri-Biodiversity Conservation Policy. The Case for a Shift to Landscape-Scale Design

Agriculture is a major driver of the ongoing biodiversity decline, demanding an urgent transition towards a system that reconciles productivity and profitability with nature conservation; however, where public policies promoting such transitions are in place, their design often poorly fits the relevant biogeophysical systems, decreasing the policies’ expected effectiveness. Spatial scale mismatches are a primary example in this regard. The literature reviewed in this paper, drawing from both ecology and policy studies, suggests to foster policy implementation at the landscape scale, where most functional ecological processes—and the delivery of related ecosystem services—occur on farmland. Two strategies are identified for coordinating policy implementation at the landscape scale: the promotion of farmers’ collective action and the partition of space on an ecologically sound basis through spatial planning. As the new European Union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post-2023 is currently being defined, we assess if and how the draft agri-biodiversity legislation includes any of the strategies above. We find no comprehensive uptake of the landscape-scale perspective at the EU level, thereby suggesting that a powerful tool to overcome the CAP underperformance on biodiversity is being overlooked.

The ambiguous role of agri-environment-climate measures in the safeguarding of High Nature Value Farming Systems: The case of the Montado in Portugal

The preservation of High Nature Value farmland (HNVf) is essential for meeting many of the new European Union (EU) Green Deal targets, as they correspond to production systems which respect the preservation of natural resources and support multiple ecosystem services. However, most of the farming systems on which HNVf rely cannot survive without support from public policies. Typically, these are low intensity and low agrochemical input systems, such as the Montado in southern Portugal, a silvo-pastoral land use system adapted to the Mediterranean constraints encountered in the region. Agri-environment-climate measures (AECM) within the EU Common Agricultural Policy, despite their multiple objectives, provide great potential for supporting the conservation of HNVf. However, for this to happen, the measures in place must ensure the maintenance of the low intensity farming practices that led to the HNV status of these systems in the first place. Using an extensive cattle production system in a Montado area as a case study, this paper assesses whether if the implementation of the AECM for Integrated production and the AECM for Organic production, are indeed supporting a less intensive management of this multifunctional land use system and, thus, its HNV. These are two well-known horizontal measures, which can be applied across all farmland and are therefore of major relevance in promoting environmental performance of farming across the EU. The results of our study show that overall, none of these AECM is promoting less intensive management practices in Montado areas, and they therefore do not contribute to the conservation of their natural value. Furthermore, the results underline the importance of grazing management to understand the ongoing changes in many Montado areas. Lastly, the results also show that horizontal AECM are barely able to provide consistent environmental benefits in systems with a high level of complexity as found in silvo-pastoral systems.

A Bayesian econometrics and risk programming approach for analysing the impact of decoupled payments in the European Union*

We estimate a risk‐based programming, individual farm model and apply it to study the wealth effects of crop‐related, decoupled direct payments under the European Union (EU) Common Agricultural Policy. The model expands on previous work on estimating risk‐based programming models by applying a robust Bayesian econometric framework. The results indicate that the wealth effect varies greatly between individual farms, but that its impact on aggregate crop production is small. For larger farms, in particular, removing the decoupled payments, while keeping total land constant, increases the diversity of the cropping plan.

Analyzing the Impact of Subsidies on Beef Production Efficiency in Selected European Union Countries. A Stochastic Metafrontier Approach

The European Union Common Agricultural Policy reforms since the early 2000s allowed for the implementation of different types of agricultural subsidies, such as direct support in the form of decoupled and coupled payments, or agri‐environmental payments. As a result, there are significant differences in agricultural subsidies granted in each member state of the European Union. However, there is limited cross‐country comparative empirical evidence regarding the effects of the implementation of different levels and types of subsidies on farm efficiency. Using farm level data for beef farms in Ireland, France, Great Britain, and Germany between 2005 and 2012, we implement the stochastic metafrontier proposed by Huang et al. (2014) and attempt to correct for endogeneity applying the method in Shee and Stefanou (2015). Using these approaches, we contribute to the literature by consistently comparing cross‐country farm performance, as well as exploring the disaggregated effects of different types of subsidies on farm level technical efficiency and on the technology gaps. Our estimates show that although beef farms included operate on average close to the global frontier, there is scope to improve farm level managerial performance. However, they do operate close to the global frontier, although not on it. We also find evidence that implementing full decoupling benefited efficiency, whereas implementing partial decoupling might have hindered technical efficiency improvements for beef farms, as well as technology catch up.

Regional Differences in Benefits from the EU Common Agricultural Policy in Poland and Their Policy Implications

Although the beneficial impact of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on the stabilization on farming income is undisputable, the distribution of benefits derived from the CAP between operators and regions gives rise to some controversy. The objective of this paper was to estimate regional differences in the benefits derived from the Common Agricultural Policy in Poland based on the partial equilibrium model of the European Union (EU) agricultural sector with simulated interventions. The expectations of farmers from different regions of Poland were represented as a non-cooperative game to define vectors of change in the agricultural policy. The theory of moves was applied to set the game between different groups of farmers. Our results demonstrate that both the 1st and the 2nd pillars of the CAP were more profitable to farmers from regions with a more advantageous agrarian structure and a higher agricultural potential compared to their peers from the regions with a fragmented agriculture. However, considering long-term development objectives of the Polish agriculture, the theory of moves outcome argues against compensating for these differences by increasing redistributive payments to farmers in less favorable regions. To prevent widening of regional differences and ensure the social and economic development of rural areas in regions with less favorable agrarian structures where agriculture is currently unable to compete, it would be critical to enhance conditions for alternative types of economic activities.

A meta-analysis of the capitalisation of CAP direct payments into land prices

AbstractThe impact of the European Union common agricultural policy direct payments on land prices has received substantial attention in recent years, leading to heterogeneous evidence of capitalisation for both coupled and decoupled payments. In this paper, we provide an extensive review of the empirical works addressing this issue econometrically and compare their results through a Bayesian meta-regression model, focussing on the impact of decoupling and its implementation schemes. We find that the introduction of decoupled payments increased the capitalisation rate, although the extent of this increment hinges on the implementation scheme adopted by the member state.

A Credit System to Solve Agricultural Nitrogen Pollution

A Credit System to Solve Agricultural Nitrogen Pollution

Crop identification by massive processing of multiannual satellite imagery for EU common agriculture policy subsidy control

ABSTRACT The early and automatic identification of crops declared by farmers is essential for streamlining European Union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payment processes. Currently, field inspections are partial, expensive and entail a considerable delay in the process. Chronological satellite images of cultivated plots can be used so that neural networks can form the model of the declared crop. Once the patterns of a crop are obtained, the correspondence of the declaration with the model of the neural network can be systematically predicted, and can be used for monitoring the CAP. In this article, we propose a learning model with neural networks, using as examples of training the pixels of the cultivated plots from the satellite images over a period of time. We also propose using several years in the training model to generalise the patterns without linking them to the climatic characteristics of a specific year. The article also describes the use of the model in learning the multi-year pattern of tobacco cultivation with very good results.

Automatic Detection of Dominant Crop Types in Poland Based on Satellite Images

Abstract The assumption of the European Union Common Agricultural Policy is to maintain good agricultural practices for sustainability in the environment. A number of requirements are imposed on farmers, including the maintenance of permanent grassland, fallow land or crop diversification. To meet these requirements, the European Union guarantees subsidies, but at the same time fields must be monitored focusing on crop identification. The limitation of field inspection and substituting it with crop recognition using satellite images could increase the effectiveness of this procedure. The application of satellite imagery in automatic detection and identification of dominant crops over a large area seems to be technically and economically sound. The paper discusses the concept and the results of automatic classification based on a Random Forests classifier performed on multitemporal images of Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8. A test site was established in a complex agricultural structure with long and narrow parcels in the south-eastern part of Poland. Time-series images acquired during the growing season 2016 were used for multispectral classification in different configurations: for Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 separately and for both sensors integrated. Different Random Forests approaches and post-processing methods were examined based on independent data from farmers’ declarations records, reaching the best accuracy of over 90% for crops like winter or spring cereals. Overall accuracy of the classification ranged from 72% to 91% depending on the classification variant. The elaborated scheme is novel in the context of Polish complex agricultural structure and smallholders.

Separability of Mowing and Ploughing Events on Short Temporal Baseline Sentinel-1 Coherence Time Series

Short temporal baseline regular Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) interferometry is a tool well suited for wide area monitoring of agricultural activities, urgently needed in European Union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) enforcement. In this study, we demonstrate and describe in detail, how mowing and ploughing events can be identified from Sentinel-1 6-day interferometric coherence time series. The study is based on a large dataset of 386 dual polarimetric Sentinel-1 VV/VH SAR and 351 Sentinel-2 optical images, and nearly 2000 documented mowing and ploughing events on more than 1000 parcels (average 10.6 ha, smallest 0.6 ha, largest 108.5 ha). Statistical analysis revealed that mowing and ploughing cause coherence to increase when compared to values before an event. In the case of mowing, the coherence increased from 0.18 to 0.35, while Sentinel-2 NDVI (indicating the amount of green chlorophyll containing biomass) at the same time decreased from 0.75 to 0.5. For mowing, there was virtually no difference between the polarisations. After ploughing, VV-coherence grew up to 0.65 and VH-coherence to 0.45, while NDVI was around 0.2 at the same time. Before ploughing, both coherence and NDVI values were very variable, determined by the agricultural management practices of the parcel. Results presented here can be used for planning further studies and developing mowing and ploughing detection algorithms based on Sentinel-1 data. Besides CAP enforcement, the results are also useful for food security and land use change detection applications.

Simplistic understandings of farmer motivations could undermine the environmental potential of the common agricultural policy

The European Union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has failed to achieve its aim of preserving European farmland biodiversity, despite massive investment in subsidies to incentivise environmentally-beneficial farming practices. This failure calls into question the design of the subsidy schemes, which are intended to either function as a safety net and make farming profitable or compensate farmers for costs and loss of income while undertaking environmental management. In this study, we assess whether the design of environmental payments in the CAP reflects current knowledge about farmers’ decision-making as found in the research literature. We do so on the basis of a comprehensive literature review on farmers’ uptake of agri-environmental management practices over the past 10 years and interviews specifically focused on Ecological Focus Areas with policy-makers, advisors and farmers in seven European countries. We find that economic and structural factors are the most commonly-identified determinants of farmers’ adoption of environmental management practices in the literature and in interviews. However, the literature suggests that these are complemented by – and partially dependent on – a broad range of social, attitudinal and other contextual factors that are not recognised in interview responses or, potentially, in policy design. The relatively simplistic conceptualisation of farmer behaviour that underlies some aspects of policy design may hamper the effectiveness of environmental payments in the CAP by over-emphasising economic considerations, potentially corroding farmer attitudes to policy and environmental objectives. We conclude that an urgent redesign of agricultural subsidies is needed to better align them with the economic, social and environmental factors affecting farmer decision-making in a complex production climate, and therefore to maximise potential environmental benefits.

Budgetary Impacts of Adding Agricultural Risk Management Programmes to the CAP

AbstractVolatile prices and income uncertainties are major issues for farmers, leading to a demand for policies that mitigate such risks. However, the budgetary consequences of risk management schemes are uncertain due to their dependence on market prices. Using an agricultural multi‐commodity market model, we evaluate the potential budgetary consequences of introducing two specific risk management schemes used in the United States into the European Union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), namely the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programmes. Our analysis considers three sets of reference prices and stochastic uncertainty related to yields and macroeconomic conditions, resulting in a joint distribution of agricultural outputs and support payments. The results show that the payments from these two risk management schemes are sensitive to the reference prices triggering support and to the programme participation shares. In the most extreme stochastic simulations, support payments from the PLC programme reach €23 billion while support payments from the ARC programme reach €2.1 billion for the three crops considered (barley, wheat and maize).