This paper investigates the co-evolution of the CAP expenditure and of the farms’ performance and choices to assess whether and to what extent CAP assessment itself meets the requisites of Causal ...Inference. In order to identify some regularities in this co-evolution, the analysis is performed on a constant group of professional farms over a long enough time period. The Italian 2008-2019 FADN balanced sample is here considered. Results points to two major empirical implications. First of all, they question whether CAP expenditure is actually accompanied by any significant farmers’ response. An exception may actually concern the support specifically focused on environmental standards. Secondly, they raises some major methodological issues about the applicability of the Treatment Effect logic to CAP assessment.
Insect declines have been implicated as possible drivers of declines in insect-eating birds2 and in animal-pollinated plants3. ...massive losses in insect diversity (Fig. 1) and abundance would be ...grounds for serious concern. ...EU restrictions on the use of neonicotinoid insecticides were instituted specifically to protect insect pollinators, and (industry-funded) research11 suggests that this restriction has cost EU oilseed-rape farmers more than €500 million (US$549 million) annually, because of reduced production and the consequential increased costs. If such in-depth, landscape-scale field research and monitoring were rolled out more widely across Europe and beyond, we could begin to build land-use and agricultural policies on the basis of compelling scientific evidence.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, provide vital support for human life, but overloading nutrients to the Earth system leads to environmental concerns, such as water and air pollution on ...local scales and climate change on the global scale. With an urgent need to feed the world's growing population and the growing concern over nutrient pollution and climate change, sustainable nutrient management has become a major challenge for this century. To address this challenge, the growing body of research on nutrient budgets, namely the nutrient inputs and outputs of a given system, has provided great opportunities for improving scientific knowledge of the complex nutrient cycles in the coupled human and natural systems. This knowledge can help inform stakeholders, such as farmers, consumers, and policy makers, on their decisions related to nutrient management. This paper systematically reviews major challenges, as well as opportunities, in defining, quantifying, and applying nutrient budgets. Nutrient budgets have been defined for various systems with different research or application purposes, but the lack of consistency in the system definition and its budget terms has hindered intercomparison among studies and experience‐sharing among researchers and regions. Our review synthesizes existing nutrient budgets under a framework with five systems (i.e., Soil‐Plant system, Animal system, Animal‐Plant‐Soil system, Agro‐Food system, and Landscape system) and four spatial scales (i.e., Plot and Farm, Watershed, National, and Global scales). We define these systems and identify issues of nitrogen and phosphorus budgets within each. Few nutrient budgets have been well balanced at any scale, due to the large uncertainties in the quantification of several major budget terms. The type and level of challenges vary across spatial scales and also differ among nutrients. Improvement in nutrient budgets will rely not only on the technological advancement of scientific observations and models but also on better bookkeeping of human activity data. While some nutrient budget terms may need decades, or even centuries, of research to be well quantified within desirable levels of uncertainties, it is imperative to effectively communicate to interested stakeholders our understanding of nutrient budgets so that scientists and a variety of stakeholders can work together to address the sustainable nutrient management challenge of this century.
Plain Language Summary
Managing nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, is fundamental, yet challenging, for sustainable development. Nutrients are critical for plant and animal growth in agriculture and in nonagricultural ecosystems and are consequently important for food security and climate stability, as well as human health. However, historical and ongoing increases in nutrient inputs to agriculture, while increasing food production, have also contributed to severe environmental problems, ranging from local water and air pollution to global climate change. Quantifying the nutrient inputs and outputs of a farm, watershed, or any other well‐defined boundary advances our knowledge of how to maintain a nutrient balance, which is an essential step toward sustainable nutrient management. So far, many research efforts have been devoted to quantifying nutrient budgets and to improving nutrient management for different systems (e.g., farms and food supply chains) and at different spatial scales (e.g., from a single farm to the entire world). However, due to the complex nature of nutrient cycles and incomplete data sets, challenges remain in quantifying and understanding nutrient budgets to inform policies and actions for sustainable nutrient management. With a systematic review of major challenges in defining, quantifying, and applying nutrient budgets, this paper calls for collective efforts by researchers, farmers, watershed managers, consumers, policy makers, and other stakeholders involved in nutrient management to improve our ability to balance nutrient budgets and to use that understanding to grow abundant food while avoiding pollution.
Key Points
Sustainable nutrient management, a major challenge of this century, requires better quantification of nutrient budgets
This paper reviews major challenges in defining, quantifying, and applying nutrient budgets on multiple system and spatial scales
The improvement and limitation in nutrient budgets need to be communicated among researchers and stakeholders to enable positive changes
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Across the European Union, the receipt of agricultural subsidisation is increasingly being predicated on the delivery of public goods. In the English context, in particular, these changes can be seen ...in the redirection of money to the new Environmental Land Management scheme. Such shifts reflect the changed expectations that society is placing on agriculture—from something that provides one good (food) to something that supplies many (food, access to green spaces, healthy rural environment, flood resilience, reduced greenhouse gas emissions). Whilst the reasons behind the changes are well documented, understanding how these shifts are being experienced by the managers expected to deliver on these new expectations is less well understood. Bourdieu’s social theory and the good farmer concept are used to attend to this blind spot, and to provide timely insight as the country progresses along its public goods subsidy transition. Evidence from 65 interviews with 40 different interviewees (25 of whom gave a repeat interview) show a general willingness towards the transition to a public goods model of subsidisation. The optimisation and efficiency that has historically characterised the productivist identity is colouring the way managers are approaching the delivery of public goods. Ideas of land sparing and land sharing (and the farming preference for the former over the latter) are used to help understand these new social and attitudinal realities. The policy implications of these findings are discussed, with reference to the new scheme’s ‘priority themes’.
During the last three decades, the European Union has adopted a series of policies aiming to increase the new farmers entering the primary sector. This scheme, namely the “New Entrants Policy”, is ...reflected to the relevant regulations of the Common Agricultural Policy. After many years of implementation, there is still limited information regarding young farmers’ perceptions and participation to this scheme. Against this backdrop, a questionnaire was developed in order to assess the degree of new farmer’s satisfaction on their decision to enter the agricultural sector by participating in this scheme. Furthermore, we tried to evaluate the factors and motivations that determined their decision. The survey was carried out in Greece during an educational seminar specifically designed for new entrants in agriculture. In total, 254 new farmers answered questions concerning their experience from the implementation of the program. Additionally, executives of public services involved in the program implementation were interviewed in depth. Data analysis revealed that the majority of new entrants declare a high degree of satisfaction from their decision to enter agriculture. Specifically, those who display environmental consciousness related to field practices towards environment protection feel more satisfied with their decision.
Resumen: Durante las últimas tres décadas, la Unión Europea ha adoptado una serie de políticas destinadas a aumentar el número de nuevos agricultores que ingresan al sector primario. Este esquema, a saber, la “Política de nuevos entrantes”, se refleja en las reglamentaciones pertinentes de la Política Agrícola Común. Después de muchos años de implementación, información disponible sobre las percepciones y la participación de los jóvenes agricultores en este esquema es todavía limitada. Para superar este obstáculo se elaboró un cuestionario para evaluar el grado de de nuevos agricultores en su decisión de ingresar al sector agrícola participando en este esquema. Además, tratamos de evaluar los factores y las motivaciones que determinaron su decisión. La encuesta se llevó a cabo en Grecia durante un seminario educativo diseñado específicamente para nuevos participantes en la agricultura. Totalmente 254 nuevos agricultores respondieron preguntas sobre su experiencia de la implementación del programa. Por lo demás ejecutivos de los servicios públicos involucrados en la implementación del programa se entrevistó en profundidad. El análisis de datos reveló que la mayoría de los nuevos participantes declaran un alto grado de satisfacción de su decisión de ingresar a la agricultura. Específicamente, aquellos que muestran conciencia ambiental en prácticas de cultivo principalmente se sienten más satisfechos de su decisión.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Abstract
This paper provides an overview and analysis of wine regulations in an international and historical comparative perspective. Wine is an excellent sector to study government interventions ...because for centuries wine markets have been subject to many government regulations that differ greatly within and between countries. Wine consumption taxes, for example, range from zero in some countries to more than 100% in others. The European Union has extensive quantity and quality regulations for wine, while other major producers such as Australia and the United States are much less regulated. After a general overview of current regulations and historical evolutions, we analyze three key wine regulations in more detail: consumption taxes, planting rights, and geographical indications. Most wine regulations reveal a tension between the public interest and vested private interests.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
We 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.
What can we, as sociologists, do with radical political criticism? The publication of the book Reprendre la terre aux machines (Reclaiming the land from the machines) by the cooperative L’Atelier ...Paysan (2021) offers a particular answer to this age-old question. The starting point of this “manifesto for peasant and food autonomy” is the authors’ dissatisfaction with the results of their own efforts. The aim of this paper is then to address the following question: are hedgerows, and with them all those who defend their greater consideration in agricultural policies, the “useful idiots” of the dominant agricultural model? The discussion is therefore organised in two stages. Firstly, it presents the arguments showing that hedgerows can support consensual ecologisation that marginalises a more profound transformation of the agricultural economy. Secondly, however, it then explores the limitations of this position by arguing that if greening via hedgerows is indeed marginal, it is not reduced to being a useful idiot but participates in ecologisation from the margins. The main lesson of this paper is to highlight the benefits for sociology to take seriously the political analyses of stakeholders, not only as objects of study but also as sparks to inspire the sociological imagination.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
•Consumers link the term ‘sustainability’ mostly to environmental issues.•At the general level, consumers express concern with environmental issues.•At the product-related level, this concern ...diminishes.•Consumers have limited awareness of sustainability labels, but can guess their meaning.•Level of use of sustainability labels is low.
This study investigates the relationship between consumer motivation, understanding and use of sustainability labels on food products (both environmental and ethical labels), which are increasingly appearing on food products. Data was collected by means of an online survey implemented in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and Poland, with a total sample size of 4408 respondents. Respondents expressed medium high to high levels of concern with sustainability issues at the general level, but lower levels of concern in the context of concrete food product choices. Understanding of the concept of sustainability was limited, but understanding of four selected labels (Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, Carbon Footprint, and Animal Welfare) was better, as some of them seem to be self-explanatory. The results indicated a low level of use, no matter whether use was measured as self-reported use of different types of information available on food labels or as use inferred from the results of a choice-based conjoint analysis. Hierarchical regression indicated that use is related to both motivation and understanding, and that both motivation, understanding and use are affected by demographic characteristics, human values as measured by the Schwartz value domains, and country differences. The results imply that sustainability labels currently do not play a major role in consumers’ food choices, and future use of these labels will depend on the extent to which consumers’ general concern about sustainability can be turned into actual behaviour.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
In the early 1970s the CAP was subject to review on four occasions, but survived each more-or-less unscathed. Soon after the 1973 enlargement of the EEC, the Commission of the European Communities ...launched a debate to 'improve' the CAP, to the surprise of Edward Heath's administration.
In a period of inflation, currency fluctuations, and the emergence of a world commodity price boom, that initiative had produced meagre results by the time Harold Wilson's Labour government displaced Heath. Labour's attempts to renegotiate the terms of membership had little impact on the CAP,
despite the government assertions to the contrary. Moreover, any hope that the USA could secure changes through the GATT negotiations triggered by enlargement had proven illusory. Similarly the German Government's insistence on budget cuts and a CAP 'stocktaking' had lost its way by the time
Heads of State assembled in Rome in December 1975.
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