Opportunities for delivery of agri-environmental public goods in Bulgarian agriculture through performance-based contracts
Keywords:
agri-environmental, contracts, public goodsAbstract
The provision of public goods is associated with major challenges, such as trade-offs between environmental performance and farm profitability, time interval between action and impact, and potential mismatch between scales of action and effects. As a result, several public goods in rural areas, such as water and air quality, soil erosion control, carbon capture, animal and plant biodiversity and recreation, are characterized by insufficient provision. EU agricultural policy, has partially refocused its goal on providing public goods in rural areas, taking into account today’s societal requirements. The goal of this paper is to analyze possible implementation of different environmental contract solutions to improved delivery of agri-environmental public goods (AEPGs) in Bulgaria. The results of this study aim to search for innovative mechanisms enabling to boost farmers’ provision of agri-environmental climate public goods. The novelty of this study is the exploration of improved contract solutions and their future implementation in Bulgarian farms for fulfillment of lack of public funding and environmental deterioration. The analysis is based on the survey with 96 farmers conducted in the period January – March 2021. The result from the survey shows that Bulgarian farmers adopt to a highest extent measures regarding soil resources, where measures for water resources represent a very narrow percentage. However, future intentions of respondents show high willingness to adopt measures regarding water resources and carbon storage. From different environmental contracts analyzed in the paper, the resultbased contracts are the most well accepted among farmers and represent a future alternative for agri-environmental contracts.
References
Armsworth, P. R., Acs, S., Dallimer, M., Gaston, K. J., Hanley, N. & Wilson, P. (2012) The cost of policy simplification in conservation incentive programs. Ecol. Lett., 15, 406–414.
Akram, N., Akram, M. W., Wang, H. & Mehmood, A. (2019) Does land tenure systems affect sustainable agricultural development? Sustainability, 11(14), 3925.
Bartolini, F., Gallerani, V., Raggi, M. & Viaggi, D. (2007) Implementing the water framework directive: Contract design and the cost of measures to reduce nitrogen pollution from agriculture. Environ. Manage, 40, 567–577.
Bartolini, F., Vergamini, D., Longhitano, D. & Povellato, A. (2020) Do differential payments for agri-environment schemes affect the environmental benefits? A case study in the North-Eastern Italy. Land Use Policy, 107, 104862.
Burton, R. J. F. & Schwarz, G. (2013) Result-oriented agri-environmental schemes in Europe and their potential for promoting behavioural change. Land Use Policy, 30, 628–641.
Cooper, T., Hart, K. & Baldock, D. (2009). The Provision of Public Goods through Agriculture in the European Union, Report Prepared for DG Agriculture and Rural Development, Contract No 30-CE-0233091/00-28,. London.
European Court of Auditors (2011).Is agri-environment support well designed and managed?, Special Report No 7. doi: 10.2865/41418.
Erjavec, K. & Erjavec, E. (2015). ‘Greening the CAP’ – Just a fashionable justification? A discourse analysis of the 2014-2020 CAP reform documents’, Food Policy. Elsevier Ltd, 51, 53–62. doi: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2014.12.006.
Jones, J., Silcock, P. & Uetake, T. (2015). Public Goods and Externalities: Agri-environmental Policy Measures in the United Kingdom, OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Papers. Paris. doi: 10.4324/9781315165721-13.
Herzon, I., Birge, T., Allen, B., Povellato, A., Vanni, F., Hart, K. & Pražan, J. (2018). Time to look for evidence: Results-based approach to biodiversity conservation on farmland in Europe. Land use policy, 71, 347–354. doi: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2017.12.011.
Hodge, I. (2007) The governance of rural land in a liberalised world. J. Agric. Econ., 58, 409–432.
Schilizzi, S. & Latacz-Lohmann, U. (2016). Incentivizing and tendering conservation contracts: The trade-off between participation and effort provision, Land Economics, 92(2), 273–291. doi: 10.3368/le.92.2.273.
Riley, M., Sangster, H., Smith, H., Chiverrell, R. & Boyle, J. (2018) Will farmers work together for conservation? The potential limits of farmers’ cooperation in agri-environment measures. Land Use Policy, 70, 635–646.
Russi, D., Margue, H., Oppermann, R. & Keenleyside, C. (2016) Result-based agri-environment measures: Market-based instruments, incentives or rewards? The case of Baden-Württemberg. Land Use Policy, 54, 69–77.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Bulgarian Journal of Agricultural Science
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
