Assessing the Landscape Recovery Scheme in the UK: a Q methodology study in Yorkshire, UK
From Firenze University Press Journal: Bio-based and Applied Economics (BAE)
Emmanouil Tyllianakis, University of Leeds
To carry out climate actions in the agricultural sector the European Commission has published its Green Deal aiming to utilise 40% of the Com-mon Agricultural Policy budged for the 2021–2027 period for this purpose (European Commission, 2019). These climate actions include the “Farm to Fork” strategy (Scown et al., 2020) and incentivising participation to agri-environmental climate schemes (AECSs) through means of direct income and financial support (Hasler et al., 2022). The ultimate goal for the European Union’s agriculture is to become carbon-neutral by 2050 (European Commis-sion, 2019) and in the intermediary, devote 25% of its budget to eco-schemes (now part of the more heavily financed Pillar I of the new CAP) and link pay-ments to mandatory environmental and biodiversity requirements of the new CAP period of 2023–2027 (European Commission, 2022). Participation in these (primarily) voluntary AECSs is determined by a variety of factors, including farmer characteristics (Unay Gailhard et al., 2015), motiva-tions that include financial components (Lastra-Bravo, et al., 2015) and environmental inclinations (Dessart et al., 2019) and the scheme’s characteristics (Tyllianakis and Martin-Ortega, 2021). Of particular interest when evaluating AECSs are determinants of farmer behaviour, driven by pre-existing concepts and viewpoints (Muhar et al., 2018). Empirical approaches to assess and find common patters in viewpoints regarding agriculture, environmental management and stewardship and types of AECSs are becoming more pronounced in the litera-ture (e.g., Walder and Kantelhardt, 2018; Iofrida et al., 2018; Braito et al., 2020; Norris et al., 2021), recognising the important role that the plurality of viewpoints across a topic play. This study aims to examine and analyse viewpoints concerning a soon-to-be introduced AECS in a country (England) that still is influenced by CAP concepts and has laid out ambitious environmental goals for AECS and the future of farming in the country. It aims to determine whether groups of farmers with similarities concerning their farm type and experience in collabo-rative AECS are positively inclined towards new and ambitious AECS currently rolled out in England. By using the semi-structured survey method of Q method-ology I present the viewpoints of a specific, geographi-cally-explicit group of UK farmers around the adoption of the newly introduced Landscape Recovery scheme. This is examined in a sample of Yorkshire farmers, members of the Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund (CSFF) scheme with past experience in collabo-rating and sharing knowledge around land steward-ship. By doing so I find several patterns in viewpoints of upland farmers in Yorkshire, involved mainly in sheep and beef farming and depending on government subsidies for their income, regarding the operationalisation of the scheme in the lands they manage. I also identify two main typologies of drivers; practical and related to implementation concerns characterise one group of participants while social and environmental concerns are of interest in the other two groups.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/bae-13941
Read Full Text: https://oaj.fupress.net/index.php/bae/article/view/13941
