Impacts of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy “Greening” Reform on Agricultural Development, Biodiversity, and Ecosystem Services

The EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has had limited success in mitigating agriculture's environmental degradation. In this paper we simulate the impacts of the 2013 “greening” reform on biodiversity and ecosystem services in environmentally contrasting landscapes. We do this by integ...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inApplied economic perspectives and policy Vol. 42; no. 4; pp. 716 - 738
Main Authors Hristov, Jordan, Clough, Yann, Sahlin, Ullrika, Smith, Henrik G., Stjernman, Martin, Olsson, Ola, Sahrbacher, Amanda, Brady, Mark V.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Boston, USA Wiley Periodicals, Inc 01.12.2020
John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Subjects
Agent-based models
agent‐based modeling
Agricultural development
Agricultural ecosystems
Agricultural policy
Biodiversity
CAP reform
Ecological Focus Areas (EFA)
Ecological function
Ecosystem services
Ecosystems
Environmental degradation
Environmental policy
Greening
landscape
Reforms
spatial production functions
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Summary:The EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has had limited success in mitigating agriculture's environmental degradation. In this paper we simulate the impacts of the 2013 “greening” reform on biodiversity and ecosystem services in environmentally contrasting landscapes. We do this by integrating an agent‐based model of structural change with spatial ecological production functions, and show that the reform will likely fail to deliver substantial environmental benefits. Our study implies that greening measures need to be tailored to local conditions and priorities, to generate environmental improvements. Such spatial targeting of measures is though incompatible with the design of a common direct payments scheme.
ISSN:2040-5790
2040-5804
DOI:10.1002/aepp.13037