Factors Influencing the Perceived Economic Benefits of Innovative Agri-Environmental Contracts.

Continued innovation in contract design may enhance the delivery of agri-environmental climate public goods (AECPG), but barriers to adoption arise in terms of how farmers perceive the economic benefits. Therefore, this paper examines survey data from Ireland and the Netherlands to analyse whether land managers agree that results-based, collective action, value chain and land tenure contracts for the delivery of AECPG are understandable, applicable to their farm and economically beneficial. Using Probit models, we also identify groups of land managers who perceive the different contract types as being economically beneficial, and these findings can inform policymakers of farmer groups who need adequate consideration during the design of agri-environmental contracts. For example, greater incentives could encourage older farmers to enrol in results-based contracts in Ireland and value chain contracts in the Netherlands. We also find a link between contract duration and the perceived economic benefits of collective action contracts in both countries, with land managers in Ireland desiring a longer duration. We highlight that policymakers and land managers in Ireland could apply lessons from the design of agri-environmental contracts in the Netherlands, where they are more common and varied. Greater knowledge exchange between users and non-users of such contracts would also help bridge the gap between theory and practice in both countries.

Aligning agri-environmental-climate public good supply and desire in a sustainable Dutch agricultural sector.

European agricultural policies increasingly incorporate mechanisms for delivery of public goods. Sustainable public good delivery requires alignment between societal demand and landscape supply. However, the variation of demands or desires regarding future public good delivery among society is hardly known. We inventoried the desires for public goods across Dutch society, and projections of agricultural supply. A multi-method approach was used to find agreement levels between desired and expected change in good delivery. Most stakeholders expressed a desire for biodiversity and climate regulation from agriculture, whilst desire for natural heritage and recreation was less common. The utility of a public good to a stakeholder appears to influence its desire. Scenarios for agriculture focus on extensification, sustainable intensification, regionalization, or meadow bird conservation. Regionalized scenarios showed the highest agreement between public good supply and desire. Maximizing alignment between desire and supply thus requires a challenging transition towards region-specific agricultural sustainability strategies.