New pathways for improved delivery of public goods from agriculture and forestry

From Firenze University Press Journal: Bio-based and Applied Economics (BAE)

Stefano Targetti, University of Bologna, Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences

Andreas Niedermayr, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Institute of Agricultural and Forestry Economics

Kati Häfner, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF)

Lena Schaller, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Institute of Agricultural and Forestry Economics

This special issue of Bio-based and Applied Economics (BAE) features a selection of five papers developed within the EU H2020 project ‘CONtract SOLutions for Effective and lasting delivery of agri-environmental-climate public goods by EU agriculture and forestry’ (CONSOLE) (H2020-RUR-2018–2, GA №817949). CONSOLE has been comprehensively inves-tigating the effectiveness, efficiency and longevity of innovative contract solutions for the provision of Agri-Environmental-Climate Public Goods (AECPGs), the acceptance of such contracts amongst European farmers and stakeholders, as well as the drivers and mechanisms influencing the imple-mentation. Despite large budgets for policies devoted to environmental objectives, the ongoing decline in the provision of AECPGs in many European agricul-tural and forest ecosystems and the growing societal concerns about ecological issues make it necessary to improve the environmental effectiveness in particular of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) (Pe’er et al., 2022). The Green Deal of the EU and the Farm-to-Fork Strategy are part of the EU’s plan to respond to these challenges. They highlight the relevance of the agricul-tural sector for the provision of a multitude of AECPGs, such as biodiversity, climate regulation, water and soil protection. To achieve real change, in addi-tion to rethinking and strengthening actions set by the Agri-Environmental and Climate Schemes (AECS), the attention towards innovative, more effec-tive, and efficient instruments is increasing (Targetti et al., 2022). The most prominent examples are result-based and value chain-based solutions, as well as approaches that promote collective implementation. In addition, land tenure contracts with environmental requirements are in the focus of interest. Although promising, all of these tools involve a number of challenges for their successful design and implementation, such as acceptance and enablement of farmers, knowledge and training needs, equity/fairness, and compatibility with agricultural business. In this editorial paper, we describe the CONSOLE framework as a major background for the evaluation of novel contract solutions and the development of the research papers for this special issue. The framework describes three main topics covered by the papers in this special issue: Innovative designs (of AECS), attitudes of farmers toward these new approaches, and drivers for their successful implementation. In the following, we first describe the CONSOLE framework and then present different aspects concern-ing contract design and innovative contractual options of AECS. Finally, we introduce the papers of the special issue of BAE: ‘New pathways for an improved delivery of public goods from agriculture and forestry’.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/bae-15862

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